The Keepsake

by Kirsty Gunn

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.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Kirsty Gunn was born in 1960 in New Zealand and educated at Queen Margaret College and Victoria University, Wellington, and at Oxford, where she completed an M.Phil. After moving to London she worked as a freelance journalist.

Her fiction includes the acclaimed Rain (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award; The Keepsake (1997), the fragmented narrative of a young woman recalling painful memories; and Featherstone (2002), a story concerned with love in all its variety. Her short stories have been included in many anthologies including The Junky's Christmas and Other Yuletide Stories (1994) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories about Childhood (1997).

She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary. Her latest books are The Boy and the Sea (2006), winner of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award; and 44 Things (2007), a book of personal reflections over the course of one year.

Kirsty Gunn lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Reviews

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Gunn is the master of description and mood. While I read this book twice just for the sheer pleasure of the atmosphere and the darkness described in fantasical detail, I still am not sure in certain sections where it's the past or the present.

I believe the girl goes through the same experience as her mother, but if this is so, there is a huge question about incest. I found I could never quite catch if that was what happened....there is an elusiveness in this book. I might have to read it a third time.

This is very dark and creepy. It is full of extreme abuse and the reader can only wonder where the author came up with it all.

This book pulls you in to a life and the life of the main character's mother that is wrought with sadness. It is original and not for the queasy or those who think reading this might stain your morality.

All ends well. Morality comes back and triumphs.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

C'est une histoire racontée du point de vue d'une fille, qui malgré elle tombe à son tour dans la drogue comme sa mère auparavant et va voir le même homme, qui est aussi son père. L'autrice décrit les interdits moraux avec une légèreté déconcertante, ça dérange, c'est réussi.

[Heidi Yoder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ex-poets will understand.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing

[nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

uncomfortable, disturbing, sickening. a fine piece of literary horror, but the writing style will definitely not be for everyone.

[Sara]

på svenska

[Darchelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this. :( I wanted to like it so bad, but this style of writing is not for me. I read the first 5 chapters, but I wanted to pull my hair out. The story is good, but the way she wrote it drove me nuts. All of the grammatical errors, run on sentences, short sentences, random thoughts. Couldn't do it!

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kirsty Gunn´s talent is in her descriptions, and this book is full of beautiful dream-like images. The first pages are delightful, and Gunn describes a cafe in such detail that I felt drawn into it. However, as the book continues, the beauty morphs into twisted tales of drugs, abuse and gender-violence. She continues with this descriptive style and I found myself wondering if I really appreciated such detail when it entails live-disections, etc. The book takes on quite a spooky quality as she writes in a very detached 1st person.

It seems a bit of a shame, as I feel that her book could have still been a success even if she had not chosen themes that the average person might find a bit too twisted to stomach. That being said, those looking for something quite dark might really enjoy this book.

[Jai Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing prose - just read aloud for the images and music!

[Kristy Alley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very bizarre and disturbing.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

ick, please make it be done

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a 2.5 I think. Beautifully written but creepy and depressing.

[Kim BookJunkie ~ Editor & Proofreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not at all my style! Please someone remind me if I ever try to read another book that is, "poetic and lyrical". Such a waste of time waiting to try to figure out what the author is saying.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow...very dark. Amazing how she can use such beautiful poetic words to tell such a horrific story.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jesus fuck