Review: A Keeper by Graham Norton

Elizabeth Keane must go back to Ireland. Following the death of her mother, she leaves her New York apartment to pack up the family home in Buncarragh. Though she lacks enthusiasm for the task (given that there’s nothing in Ireland for her but memories), she’s surprised to discover several secrets. After chancing upon a box of letters from the father Elizabeth never met due to his early demise, she glances into her mother’s past, skipping along the surface but intent on uncovering it all. When she is bequeathed a second property, she follows her mother’s decades-old footsteps, and learns that the idyllic childhood she experienced was fraught with shadows and mystery.

There’s the expectation that a celebrity cannot write (I’m looking at you, Dustin Hoffman), yet Graham Norton has put himself in a league of his own. Perhaps (one aspect of) his work as a talk show host, looking into the souls of celebrities and popular culture, has given him a unique and vast insight into what it is that makes us tick. Whatever the reason, Norton has penned a masterpiece of human drama.

Norton beautifully dissects and examines what it means to be family, to love, and to grieve. His characters seem to be average people with humdrum lives, yet are steeped in a rich background that is as pleasingly portrayed as it is satisfying to read. A Keeper provides the reader with servings of intrigue and horror unique to kin – those which are sheltered from the world at large and hidden within bloodlines. In addition, a completely unexpected twist is dazzling and blindsides the reader, making it a delicious entertainment of luxurious quality.

The complexity of the thoughts and history of the story’s characters is astounding – they are testament to the shadows that decisions can cast across time and space; across generations. These aspects, once combined with small-town idle gossip and the unpredictability of the other, result in a truly mesmerizing story that is flawlessly executed. I challenge you not to read A Keeper in a single sitting. The brilliance of Norton’s writing unveils itself beyond black script on white pages; his are ideas of profound colour that linger with you after, that quietly creep up on you in still moments and demand attention and thought; they are insistent and charming.

A Keeper by Graham Norton is published by Hodder and Stoughton, and is available in South Africa from Jonathan Ball Publishers.