Possession

One of the novels I most wanted to read from the 2024 Booker Prize Shortlist was Yael Van Der Wouden's The Safe Keep (2024). Set in a rural area of the Netherlands, it is fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. The buildings have been reconstructed after the damage of war, but the people still bear deep scars.

It is 1961 and Isabel lives by herself in the serene country home she and her brothers moved to during the war. She cared for her mother until her death and now cares for her house with the same discipline. Isabel has had help in the form of various housekeepers, but is constantly on the look out for someone stealing from her. 

Her brothers left home long ago. Louis lives a bachelor's life with a series of girlfriends. As the eldest is the heir to the home, and plans to allow Isabel to live there until he marries. Younger brother Hendrik is gay, living a closeted life with his partner Sebastian. The three siblings have occasional dinners together but are not particularly close.

Isabel's solitary life of routine is disrupted when Louis drops off his latest girlfriend to live in the house when he travels for work. Eva is the complete opposite of Isabel - charismatic, curious, free. Isabel immediately dislikes the girl and the invasion of her sacred space. Isabel is annoyed that Eva sleeps in her late mother's bed, that she is friendly with the housekeeper, that she touches things in the house. Isabel is openly hostile to her, rather than a gracious host. Over the next few weeks, Eva attempts to get to know Isabel and is rebuffed, often quote rudely, at every turn. Both are uneasy in each other's presence, yet they are drawn together. If Isabel can loosen her self-restraint, she may just find some of the freedom she so admires in others.

In her debut novel, Van Der Wouden has crafted a story about ownership and possession. Isabel is entrenched in a house which she knows she will never own and can be ousted anytime her brother chooses. Isabel carefully counts each teaspoon and obsesses over the Delft plates in the cabinet. They are her only companions. Eva views these possessions quite differently and appears, to Isabel, to be completely untethered to anything or anyone.

Van Der Wouden has created believable characters with nuance and tenderness. Isabel initially comes across as restrained, unyielding and unlikeable. Eva appears superficial and frivolous. But as the story unfolds, and the tensions between them grow, Isabel's hardness begins to crack and she begins a sexual awakening. Likewise Eva reveals hidden depths. The first two parts focus mainly on Isabel. In Part III there is a narrative shift as we read Eva's diaries and get her perspective on past events. There is a wonderful twist and forces readers to see both women in a new light. 

With great skill, the author navigates the post-war reckoning and the legacy of loss and dispossession. The characters were all children during the war, impacted in different ways. Now in their late twenties, there remains a lingering trauma which manifests in different ways for each. 

The Safe Keep is such a good novel. I was engrossed in the story and continued to think about the characters long after I had finished reading.