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A review by bellatora
The Kept by James Scott
2.0
In 1897, midwife Elspeth returns home to find that her family has been slaughtered. Only one son, Caleb, survives. Turns out that Elspeth is
Elspeth and Caleb head off after the men – Caleb in particular swears vengeance. When they arrive in the town where the murderers are, they stay put and get jobs. Elspeth cross-dresses and has a strange relationship with a violent, repressed gay man. Caleb works cleaning a whorehouse and makes friends with a child prostitute. It is all very bleak and terrible.
And that appears to be the point of the book. The world is bleak and terrible and nothing good ever lasts.
Spoiler
a children hoarder. Yes, she has a compulsion to steal the babies she midwifes into the world. Her poor, doomed husband tries to get her to stop, but silently goes along with it when her addiction rears its head. Elspeth has a traumatic childhood, so I guess that’s meant to explain the baby stealing, but her husband also had a traumatic childhood and HE turned out alright. Elspeth’s family was slaughtered by men hired by a father of one of the stolen babies (I guess he wasn’t concerned that by doing so he would kill his own child???). The stolen baby with the murderous father turns out to be, of course, Caleb.Elspeth and Caleb head off after the men – Caleb in particular swears vengeance. When they arrive in the town where the murderers are, they stay put and get jobs. Elspeth cross-dresses and has a strange relationship with a violent, repressed gay man. Caleb works cleaning a whorehouse and makes friends with a child prostitute. It is all very bleak and terrible.
And that appears to be the point of the book. The world is bleak and terrible and nothing good ever lasts.