<![CDATA[The Keep]]>

false <![CDATA[The Keep]]>

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In Jennifer Egan's deliciously creepy new novel, two cousins reunite twenty years after a childhood prank gone wrong changed their lives and sent them on their separate ways. "Cousin Howie," the formerly uncool, strange, and pasty ("he looked like a guy the sun wouldn't touch") cousin has become a blond, tan, and married millionaire with a generous spirit. He invites his cousin Danny (who as an insecure teenager left him hurt and helpless in a cave for three days) to help him renovate an old castle in Germany. To reveal too much would ruin the story, just know that The Keep is a wonderfully weird read--a touch experimental in terms of narrative, with a hefty dose of gothic tension and mystery--balanced by an intimate and mesmerizing look at how the past haunts us in different ways. --Daphne Durham <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> 10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Jennifer Egan <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/books/promos/a-plus/jennifer.egan.jpg" hspace="4" vspace="4" border="0" align="left"> Q: What is your writing process like? Has it differed from book to book? A: My writing process seems to be a strange one, at least compared with other writers I've talked to. I begin with very little: usually just a strong sense of time and place--of atmosphere--and a few abstract notions that I want to explore. In the case of The Keep, I had a yen to set a book in what I'll call a gothic environment: an isolated, crumbling structure whose heyday is long past, and where eerie things begin to happen. As for the notions, I was curious about telecommunications: the way that cell phones and the Internet have made so many of us accustomed to nearly constant disembodied communication--a state traditionally associated with supernatural experience. I loved the idea of letting modern telecommunications collide with a gothic environment and seeing what would happen. I write by hand--usually one long draft that I scribble out quickly (5-10 pages a day) and poorly. I do this almost completely from the gut, with very little sense of where I'm going. It's often in the process of this almost unconscious writing that I discover characters and action. When the first draft is done, I type it into the computer (the parts I can read anyway; I have wretched handwriting) and see what I've got. Not a word of that first draft usually makes it anywhere near the final draft--which, in the case of some chapters of Look at Me, my last novel, was sixty to seventy drafts later. I edit by hand on a hard copy, then type in the changes and print it out again for further editing. The writing itself always remains instinctive, but there is a strong analytical counterpart, when I figure out what I'm doing in terms of plot, characters, thematic underpinnings, and then scheme about how I can do it better. I save every draft until a book is done; a towering pile of paper that I eventually, joyfully, recycle. Q: Some of the most powerful (and terrifying) moments in the book deal with claustrophobia. Are you claustrophobic? A: I almost never write about myself, or things that have happened in my own life, or about people I know. I like to make all of it up--or at least, I think I'm making it up, until later I realize how much of my own experience has crept into my books, disguised even from me. For example: I'm not claustrophobic, but I've certainly been paranoid, and the two are closely linked. I wanted to capture the way that paranoia (like claustrophobia) can instantly turn a benign environment into an unmitigated nightmare. One question is always at the center of such experiences: is this real, or am I making it up? We live in very paranoid times. I was interested in the way paranoia can make someone turn threatening and aggressive in exactly the ways they perceive the world to be. They become the very monster they fear. Q: What author/s have inspired you? A: In the big, long-term ways: Lawrence Sterne, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Emile Zola, George Eliot, Robert Stone, Don DeLillo, Jean Rhys. For The Keep, the list is slightly different. There are some fantastic (and totally insane) Gothic novels that I had a ball reading: Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk--those are all 18th century books--and then from the 19th century, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which is an absolutely drop-dead great thriller. </div> <hr /="/" noshade="noshade" class="bucketDivider" size="1"> <div class="bucket">

1046035

2006

The Keep

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1799

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1 6 false false Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Mon Apr 02 14:18:29 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 15 10:42:49 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 3 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 26 10:21:50 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 26 10:21:50 -0700 2007 NY Times Book Review writeup from forever ago, because was that review so positive that it glowed like a deep-sea anglerfish's esca? Oh, yes. But is that an apt metaphor? Also yes, because reading the book felt like being digested by an anglerfish ...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 13 06:35:42 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 25 15:32:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 true false Sat Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 10:18:50 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 12:25:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Mar 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 01 09:50:21 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 17 11:58:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Feb 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 09:20:12 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 28 11:43:57 -0800 2008
1- I would NEVER have chosen this book on my own, which means someone recommended it to me, but I can't for the life of me remember who.

2- I don't like the protagonist. I didn't from t...more...]]> 0 1 false false Sat Sep 09 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Tue Feb 12 09:03:13 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 12 10:14:21 -0800 2009
I originall...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Dec 23 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 15 09:49:49 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 23 15:10:09 -0800 2008
If I could give this 2.5 stars, I would. I'm ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Oct 23 22:20:28 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 26 15:25:48 -0700 2007
I found the main character Danny...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 01 15:36:29 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 18:14:38 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Feb 07 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 21:18:21 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 21:24:02 -0800 2008
Gaaaaah. It was predictable - even the twist at the end was obvious. The writing was just short of inspired. It was very good, but I cou...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Apr 05 18:12:17 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 05 18:15:52 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 26 13:10:46 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 26 13:26:50 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon Aug 20 11:58:17 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 20 12:03:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false true Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 12:47:15 -0700 2008 Sun May 25 13:26:43 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 20 15:38:44 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 15:54:42 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 05 06:40:50 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 06:58:01 -0800 2009 The Magus by many reviewers, I was expecting a lot from this book. In my opinion, there's very little of The Magus in The Keep beyond the set-up (slightly obnoxious guy travels to another country he knows nothing about, and quickly gets in over his head). But although I was disa...more...]]> 1 0 false false Sat Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 02:46:04 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 02:46:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Feb 02 15:24:07 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 12:22:16 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 05:51:07 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 08:38:12 -0800 2009 more...]]>