Items related to The Keepsake
Synopsis
A young woman returns again and again in dreams and her imagination to the stories that her mother told her about a father who loved her but whom she did not know until she starts to relive her mother's abandonment. Tour.
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Review
The Keepsake is a strange, hypnotic book, a tale of sexual obsession dressed in such beautiful language that the reader is swept into its universe willing or not. Kirsty Gunn is fearless, wading into such unsavory topics as imprisonment, rape, torture, and incest to tell the story of a nameless female narrator caught up in the obsessions of an aging psychotic. The book begins with the memory of a beautiful café, but whether the memory belongs to the young woman or to her mother is difficult to tell. The narrator seems to be assuming her mother's life, her own memories jumbling with those of her mother, from the café she had frequented to the destructive love affair she embarked upon.
Memories of mother bleed into the history of the narrator's own disastrous affair, and, as the details pile up in phantasmagoric prose, it becomes increasingly probable that the man to whom she surrenders her body and her will is the same man her mother loved--her father. The Keepsake is a disturbing novel, a garden of perversions made weirdly compelling by the author's unheated approach.
From Library Journal
Gunn (Rain, LJ 2/15/95) creates a sensation akin to drifting under the influence of a powerful drug. The writing flows beautifully and deliciously, gradually revealing a tale of obsession, addiction, and abuse. The narrator is the daughter of a lovely (and nameless) young woman who fled her abusive father by eloping with an equally abusive husband. "Like all the frightened women who run frantically towards the future...all they meet is memory." After her husband leaves, the woman escapes into drugs and dreams but manages to maintain a deep and strong connection with her daughter. Raised on tales of passion and abandonment, the daughter knows nothing else and eventually replicates her mother's life. "Repeating is a truth of nature, like one flat cloud forming in the sky after its sister. They are not identical, but in the blue sky they are the same." The story is disturbing until the end, when redemption seems within reach. Recommended for public libraries.?Kimberly G. Allen, networkMCI Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherAtlantic Monthly Pr
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0871136759
- ISBN 13 9780871136756
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages213
- Rating
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The Keepsake
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The Keepsake
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Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated, 1997
ISBN 10: 0871136759
ISBN 13: 9780871136756
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The Keepsake
Published by
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated, 1997
ISBN 10: 0871136759
ISBN 13: 9780871136756
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Hardcover
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The Keepsake
Published by
Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, New York, USA, 1997
ISBN 10: 0871136759
ISBN 13: 9780871136756
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Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First American Edition. BY2 - A hard cover first American edition withdrawn ex-library book in very good condition with a dust jacket in very good condition. Stated first American edition with a sequence of numbers with the "1" present and with no additional printings indicated. A tight, clean, sound copy in textured white paper covered boards with black lettering and a graphic on the spine with very minor overall shelf wear with the mylar sleeve endflaps glued to the front and back fixed endpapers plus there are the usual library stamps, label, and pocket on the top outside paper edges, the title page, and the back free endpaper plus there is some very light soiling on the top outside paper edges. The dust jacket shows no visible signs of wear plus it is still in the original library mylar sleeve. A novel about a young girl who has grown up with a mother dependent on storytellinn of tales of deceptive happiness and an inability to cope with the memory of her lost love, the girl's father. As the girl becomes a young woman, she is drawn into and begins to relive the same real story of her mother's pain, abandonment, and tyranny of desire by an older man. By the author of "Rain." 213p. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Ex-Library. Seller Inventory # SCW11543
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hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_396928281
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