The Keepsake

By Kirsty Gunn

Book Overview

In hypnotic and mesmerizing language, Kirsty Gunn explores the dark world of a young girl who has grown up with a mother dependent on storytelling and the oblivion of addiction to cope with the memory of lost love, the girl's father. Raised on deceptive tales of happiness, the younger woman is drawn into and begins to relive the real story of pain, abandonment, and the tyranny of desire. As her life spirals out of control, the tangled yarn of her mother's past begins to unravel, until finally she can come to tell a story that is her own. This luminous and disturbing novel reveals the terrible intimacy of family love and the redemptive power of storytelling.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802135595
• ISBN13: 9780802135599
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

OH MY GOD!

I WASN'T EVEN SURE HOW TO RATE THIS BOOK. I WILL SAY WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY THAT I HAVE NEVER READ A BOOK LIKE THIS IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. THE WRITING WAS STUNNING. THE AUTHOR DRAWS YOU INTO HER SICK AND TWISTED WORLD IN THE MOST HYPNOTIC WAY THAT I FELT I WAS DROWNING IN HER WORDS. I WOULD READ A PAGE AND GASP OUT LOUD "OH MY GOD" BUT I COULDN'T STOP READING IT. I WAS COMPELLED TO GO ON EVEN THOUGH I WAS HORRIFIED AT THE SAME TIME. AT THE END OF THE BOOK I DIDN'T KNOW WHETHER TO APPLAUD THE BRILLIANCE OF THE WRITING OR HIGHLY SUGGEST SHE GET SOME SERIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP.

Beautiful prose for an ugly, very uncomfortable subject.

I agree completely with the previous reviewer that stated that they were not sure they "enjoyed" this book. However, it was extremely well-written in an enchanting, dream-like style. It lulls you in and then bangs you over the head with it's subject matter of abuse, confinement, imprisonment, rape, torture and drug-use. Not comfortable subject matter, but is life always comfortable and happy? I don't think any author today is as powerful as Kirsty Gunn to make such an ugly and horribly macabre story so compelling and interesting. Isn't that what good authors do? They seduce you by excellent writing to visit another world, completely different and unique and yes, horrible to fathom.I preferred Rain, Gunn's first novel. Rain was also a painful, but well-written read about an uncomfortable subject matter. I find her writing poetic and beautiful and yes, carthritic. An amzazing talent and two truly hypnotic novels: The Keepsake and Rain. Don't miss either novel from this extraordianaryly talented young muse.

Intriguing, hypnotic, distrubing

I don't know that I would call my reaction to this book "enjoyment" but it continues to haunt me. I was impressed with Ms. Gunn's writing style. She shows a remarkable ability to give a scene an intense emotional color. The circumstances under which the keepsake is acquired should evoke horror. But the events recounted by the narrator are recalled at what seems to be an immense remove. Whether this is the result of the passage of time or deep-seated trauma is impossible to tell. I think Ms. Gunn has a lot of potential and I look forward to reading her next book

Good book, though I liked "Rain" better.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed by this book. "Rain" was so good, that perhaps I had unfair expectaions of this book. Still, "The Keepsake" is worth reading, and I think I might like it better once I get around to re-reading it. Kirsty Gunn has become my favorite author, and I look forward to her next book