The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Review by Rachel Shaver
“She was not wanted. That was the long and the short of it: she had learned want, briefly and hungrily. A span of a day, two days. She had learned the shape of it, the quick taste of it. She had reached out, foolishly, and she was not wanted in return.”
The Safekeep, set in the years after World War II, is not a story of The Holocaust—until it is. And then Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel is a poignant post-war narrative. But before that, The Safekeep is a novel told through the eyes of Isabel, the reclusive daughter of a wealthy family, living in her childhood home after the death of her parents. Though the house belongs legally to her older brother, Louis, Isabel dreams of keeping the house for herself.
Isabel is not a likable character, and Van der Wouden does not write her with the intention of making her palatable. Isabel is selfish, even bratty, and often cruel to those around her. She lives alone with the continued support from her brothers and her Uncle Karel, and she has no desire to ever leave or marry. She has a maid that comes every other day, who she accuses regularly of being a thief, and who she has never shown even a sliver of kindness. Isabel is obsessive, deeply flawed, and vividly human in a way that will make you love her as much as you dislike her. Van der Wouden achieves this by refusing to soften Isabel’s sharp edges, pulling the reader in through her contradictions and unsettling honesty.. The intimacy of her perspective makes Isabel impossible to look away. Beyond her flaws, she is caring and loyal, and Van der Wouden successfully makes her redeemable even through her idiosyncrasies. Her motivations are not malicious, even if she goes about things the wrong way.
The war does not deeply affect Isabel or her family, and in this way, the book employs a powerful conceit of lulling the reader into a similar sense of indifference until much later in the novel when this willful ignorance is torn away from Isabel and the reader alike.
“What did people who spoke of joy know of what it meant, to sleep and dream only of the whistle of planes and knocks at the door and on windows and to wake with a hand at one's throat— one's own hand, at one's own throat.”
The main story of The Safekeep comes when Louis brings his newest girlfriend, Eva, for an extended stay with Isabel while he is away for work. Isabel hates Eva from the start, knowing feckless Louis will—as his history with women suggests—not keep Eva around long. Isabel finds Eva to be annoying, a rupture in her carefully constructed life of solitude. Eva unsettles Isabel, first negatively, but eventually slips past her defenses and forces Isabel to confront desire and her aversion to companionship. There is a tenderness in the development between them, starting as wary attraction and evolving into a mutual longing. Tangled among Isabel’s inexperience and commitment to seclusion is also the memory of her brother, Hendrik, who she watched grow estranged from the family after falling in love with another man.
Toward the end of the novel, the focus shifts unexpectedly to Eva, revealing much of her mysterious past through a series of diary entries. These, however, feel more disruptive than seamless. These entries render Eva vivid and layered in a way she never quite manages to be through Isabel’s perspective. While powerful and beautifully crafted, this device highlights the earlier lack of depth in Eva’s characterization, making her transformation feel less integrated into the story than it might have been.
If the novel has a shortcoming, it is in the unevenness of its supporting characters. Isabel is depicted with so much depth, but figures like Eva and Hendrik sometimes feel less developed by comparison. Their arcs were promising, yet they sometimes serve the story more than they stand fully on their own. Still, this imbalance is a small flaw in what is otherwise a compelling debut.
The Safekeep is a quiet story. It’s rich with subtlety and sets itself almost entirely in Isabel’s childhood home, which makes it most significantly a character-driven novel. It is the characters who carry the weight of the narrative, their inner lives giving shape to the story more than plot itself. In Isabel, Van der Wouden achieves a characterization that is honest and vivid in its imperfections. We witness Isabel’s gradual shift from isolation and cruelty toward vulnerability and recognition, rooting for her along the way, even while despising some of her choices.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Atmospheric historical fiction for lovers of difficult protagonists and slow-burn queer love stories. A novel that reads like a moodboard: postwar melancholy, repressed desire, and the nostalgia of a childhood home.
About the author:
Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher. She currently lectures in creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, "On (Not) Reading Anne Frank", has received a notable mention in The Best American Essays 2018.
About the reviewer:
Rachel Shaver graduated from Eckerd College with a BA in creative writing and a minor in literature. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her twin sister and spends her days consuming media in all forms. She has been published in Collision Literary Magazine and worked as editor-in-chief for Eckerd Review, as well as editorial intern for Cleaver Magazine
