THE SAFEKEEP

Two women spend a fraught summer together in the Dutch countryside.

When she first meets Eva, Isabel is not just unimpressed; she finds her worthy of mockery. The latest in her brother Louis’ long list of girlfriends, Eva has cheaply dyed hair and a cheaply made dress and, when they all go out for dinner, doesn’t know what scallops are. Van der Wouden’s brilliant debut novel opens in 1961 in the Netherlands; World War II has ended, but the trauma of the war years is etched as deeply into the Dutch landscape as are the craters left by actual bombs. Isabel has become a caretaker for the old house she and her siblings grew up in. She spends her isolated days in regimented fashion, polishing silver and visiting the post office. “She belonged to the house in the sense that she had nothing else, no other life than the house,” van der Wouden writes. Isabel’s routine—and, eventually, everything she thought she knew about herself and her family—is disrupted when Eva comes to spend a few weeks with her while Louis is away for work. Even van der Wouden’s spare prose gives way to the lush mystery Eva carries with her: “How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the skin of overripe fruit.” This is a beautifully realized book, nearly perfect, as van der Wouden quietly explores the intricate nuances of resentment-hued sibling dynamics, the discovery of desire (and the simultaneous discovery of self), queer relationships at a time when they went unspoken, and the legacy of war and what it might mean to have been complicit in its horrors.

A brilliant debut, as multifaceted as a gem.