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A review by wendysawatzky
The Kept by James Scott
4.0
In midwinter 1897, midwife Elspeth Howell returns after months away to her family's remote homestead in upstate New York to find her husband and four of her children killed in cold blood.
The lone survivor of the massacre, troubled 12-year-old introvert Caleb fears his mother's approaching footsteps, thinking they harken the killer's return. He strikes out blindly, gravely wounding his last family member with his own shotgun.
Thus the theme is set for the rest of James Scott's debut novel, an exploration of the unintended consequences of acts that seemed right when they were committed -- set against a beautifully drawn backdrop of stark winter.
Scott unfolds his characters' secrets in a series of skilful flashbacks while weaving together twin narratives: Elspeth's flight from her sins and Caleb's hunt for justice. Both protagonists are tormented by things they've done, and each dreads and hungers for the conflict that awaits them.
The mother and son make unlikely travel companions. Despite the two being in one of life's most intimate relationships, there is a yawning chasm between them. "Elspeth and Caleb exchanged a look that neither could decipher, something of confusion and weariness." Neither has much to say to the other and both struggle to understand their own thoughts and actions, never mind those of the other.
The text is spare, even as it describes the inner life of its characters. "He had a new hollow in his chest where he assumed his heart had been and he dressed as fast as possible." This frugality, along with the time period, has drawn comparisons to Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers. The style is similar, but where DeWitt includes dark humour, Scott instead adds a dark dash of magical realism, with people haunted by ghosts and snow that falls in a constant blanket.
And the winter! It's obvious Scott, raised in upstate New York, is familiar with long stretches of bone-chilling cold. He describes snow, for example, with almost loving attention to detail: by turns soft or crunchy or crusty or slick, or drifting in great powdery dunes over ominous lumps in a hillside. "She stomped through the unbroken snow, her knees high. He watched her carve a straight line across the perfect surface, wind-blown ripples frozen like tiny waves."
The novel is peppered with interesting twists and turns: Elspeth spends a period impersonating a man to haul ice for the Great Lakes Ice Company; her son is taken under the wing of the wealthy owner of a brothel.
Characters who play smaller roles in the novel -- Elspeth's husband, or her colleague at the Great Lakes Ice Company, for example -- have complex inner lives that add to the novel's investigation of identity. That this is the general rule makes curious the book's few exceptions. In particular, one Western cliché -- the wise young prostitute with a heart of gold -- protrudes as a paper cutout among the other more carefully cultivated characters.
Another weak point, unfortunately, is the book's ending. Scott satisfyingly wraps Elspeth's and Caleb's searches for the meaning of family and identity -- but then tacks on another 20 pages of increasingly puzzling decisions, culminating in a battle royal more suited to a Quentin Tarantino film.
That said, The Kept is an affecting study on the weight of secrets and the depth of identity, unrolled with a slow urgency that keeps the reader turning pages.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 1, 2014 page G6
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/books/a-snowy-story-of-right-and-wrong-247991411.html
The lone survivor of the massacre, troubled 12-year-old introvert Caleb fears his mother's approaching footsteps, thinking they harken the killer's return. He strikes out blindly, gravely wounding his last family member with his own shotgun.
Thus the theme is set for the rest of James Scott's debut novel, an exploration of the unintended consequences of acts that seemed right when they were committed -- set against a beautifully drawn backdrop of stark winter.
Scott unfolds his characters' secrets in a series of skilful flashbacks while weaving together twin narratives: Elspeth's flight from her sins and Caleb's hunt for justice. Both protagonists are tormented by things they've done, and each dreads and hungers for the conflict that awaits them.
The mother and son make unlikely travel companions. Despite the two being in one of life's most intimate relationships, there is a yawning chasm between them. "Elspeth and Caleb exchanged a look that neither could decipher, something of confusion and weariness." Neither has much to say to the other and both struggle to understand their own thoughts and actions, never mind those of the other.
The text is spare, even as it describes the inner life of its characters. "He had a new hollow in his chest where he assumed his heart had been and he dressed as fast as possible." This frugality, along with the time period, has drawn comparisons to Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers. The style is similar, but where DeWitt includes dark humour, Scott instead adds a dark dash of magical realism, with people haunted by ghosts and snow that falls in a constant blanket.
And the winter! It's obvious Scott, raised in upstate New York, is familiar with long stretches of bone-chilling cold. He describes snow, for example, with almost loving attention to detail: by turns soft or crunchy or crusty or slick, or drifting in great powdery dunes over ominous lumps in a hillside. "She stomped through the unbroken snow, her knees high. He watched her carve a straight line across the perfect surface, wind-blown ripples frozen like tiny waves."
The novel is peppered with interesting twists and turns: Elspeth spends a period impersonating a man to haul ice for the Great Lakes Ice Company; her son is taken under the wing of the wealthy owner of a brothel.
Characters who play smaller roles in the novel -- Elspeth's husband, or her colleague at the Great Lakes Ice Company, for example -- have complex inner lives that add to the novel's investigation of identity. That this is the general rule makes curious the book's few exceptions. In particular, one Western cliché -- the wise young prostitute with a heart of gold -- protrudes as a paper cutout among the other more carefully cultivated characters.
Another weak point, unfortunately, is the book's ending. Scott satisfyingly wraps Elspeth's and Caleb's searches for the meaning of family and identity -- but then tacks on another 20 pages of increasingly puzzling decisions, culminating in a battle royal more suited to a Quentin Tarantino film.
That said, The Kept is an affecting study on the weight of secrets and the depth of identity, unrolled with a slow urgency that keeps the reader turning pages.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 1, 2014 page G6
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/books/a-snowy-story-of-right-and-wrong-247991411.html