What do you think?
Rate this book
Keeper
[Back Cover]
"In this world of tomorrow is neither hatred nor love. Normal human sentiment is punishable by death! Dreams of happiness, human warmth and joy have given way to indifference. Man has been programmed not to feel. It is a chilling world in which there is no feeling at all, save fear...fear of any human emotion! This is the world in which Frederick Dainig must live. He told himself he couldn't help it, but he knew better than to let himself care about the little child of whom he is the Keeper."
"In this world of tomorrow is neither hatred nor love. Normal human sentiment is punishable by death! Dreams of happiness, human warmth and joy have given way to indifference. Man has been programmed not to feel. It is a chilling world in which there is no feeling at all, save fear...fear of any human emotion! This is the world in which Frederick Dainig must live. He told himself he couldn't help it, but he knew better than to let himself care about the little child of whom he is the Keeper."
- GenresScience Fiction
191 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1976
35 people want to read
About the author
J. Hunter Holly
21 books17 followersJoan Carol Holly was a science fiction author who wrote under the pseudonym J. Hunter Holly in the late 1950s until the mid-1970s. Joan Holly also contributed stories for Roger Elwood's series of books and sci-fi magazines, under both her real name(Joan C. Holly) and her pseudonym (Joan Hunter Holly).
Joan died of lung cancer in 1982.
Joan died of lung cancer in 1982.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 15, 2019
1986 Grade A+
2019 Grade A
Wow - that was intense.
It is an old book written in an even older style so it is a bit too repetitive. I dealt with that this time by skipping to the next paragraph when I realized I already knew the information or knew it would be too harsh. Other than that it is fast and easy to read. It is also very powerful and emotionally disturbing - the same notes I made to myself on the inside cover in 1986. Still, it was not an easy book to put down.
The story is psychological and is about a society which suppresses emotions by conditioning in childhood. It follows the protagonist who regains his emotions while caring for child who still has his. It is a major struggle and brutal at times. But it is also an incredible story.
Recommended!
2019 Grade A
Wow - that was intense.
It is an old book written in an even older style so it is a bit too repetitive. I dealt with that this time by skipping to the next paragraph when I realized I already knew the information or knew it would be too harsh. Other than that it is fast and easy to read. It is also very powerful and emotionally disturbing - the same notes I made to myself on the inside cover in 1986. Still, it was not an easy book to put down.
The story is psychological and is about a society which suppresses emotions by conditioning in childhood. It follows the protagonist who regains his emotions while caring for child who still has his. It is a major struggle and brutal at times. But it is also an incredible story.
Recommended!
January 22, 2023
I wasn't sure what to expect when I began reading this book. It gave me cause to look at our society, and humanity as a whole. Any book that gives one pause to consider themselves and others in a different light is a good book.
May 17, 2025
grim dystopia
where emotions are a crime
author from lansing
where emotions are a crime
author from lansing
June 11, 2024
For the first half of this story, I was unable to suspend my disbelief for such an absurdly dystopian and bleak world. People have every emotion brainwashed out of them as children, with the exception of pride, fear, anxiety, and irritation, which are considered good survival emotions. Everything else is a burden. Some people suffer re-emergence of illegal emotions, and are then put through a treatment to have them tortured back out of them.
I had a lot of problems with the potential mechanics of this. Emotions create morality, and morality creates law. In a world where no one has any feelings or attachments to anyone, there's no real reason to raise kids or not murder competitors or ever help anyone but yourself. A society like that would collapse under its own empathy-less selfishness. I also can't believe that any government would ever be this precise about anything, ever. Back in the day, we really had some faith in the concept of governmental control. Joke's on us. Turns out modern governments just barley even function.
The third problem is that one of this society's sources of amusement is watching a sort of live stream of a mentally challenged boy that airs several times a day. They all vicariously experience his uninhibited emotions, which are often aroused through types of physical and emotional torture. If someone on the street suffering a re-emergence is disgraceful for themselves, and traumatic for those who see it, why on earth would everyone tune in three times a day to watch such a display and risk their own re-emergence?
But at the halfway point, I tied to put my scoffs aside and focus on the story, which is about Fredrick Danig, the caretaker of that disabled boy, and his eventual re-emergence because of the child's love for the him.
The two big tropes this story pleasantly avoided were 1. The most emotional person on earth is not a woman and 2. Emotion emerges not from the love of a romantic partner, but from a mentally disabled child.
I allowed myself to be swept up in the drama, despite a lot of corny dialogue. Pornograhic levels of bleakness, torture, and misery are achieved. The ending plays with the idea of going full dark but pivots toward hope--and I don't think it should have. I thought I wanted the hopeful ending until I got it, realizing the emotional oomph of the dark ending would have devastated me much more intensely than the hopefulness lifted me up.
3.5, rounded up
I had a lot of problems with the potential mechanics of this. Emotions create morality, and morality creates law. In a world where no one has any feelings or attachments to anyone, there's no real reason to raise kids or not murder competitors or ever help anyone but yourself. A society like that would collapse under its own empathy-less selfishness. I also can't believe that any government would ever be this precise about anything, ever. Back in the day, we really had some faith in the concept of governmental control. Joke's on us. Turns out modern governments just barley even function.
The third problem is that one of this society's sources of amusement is watching a sort of live stream of a mentally challenged boy that airs several times a day. They all vicariously experience his uninhibited emotions, which are often aroused through types of physical and emotional torture. If someone on the street suffering a re-emergence is disgraceful for themselves, and traumatic for those who see it, why on earth would everyone tune in three times a day to watch such a display and risk their own re-emergence?
But at the halfway point, I tied to put my scoffs aside and focus on the story, which is about Fredrick Danig, the caretaker of that disabled boy, and his eventual re-emergence because of the child's love for the him.
The two big tropes this story pleasantly avoided were 1. The most emotional person on earth is not a woman and 2. Emotion emerges not from the love of a romantic partner, but from a mentally disabled child.
I allowed myself to be swept up in the drama, despite a lot of corny dialogue. Pornograhic levels of bleakness, torture, and misery are achieved. The ending plays with the idea of going full dark but pivots toward hope--and I don't think it should have. I thought I wanted the hopeful ending until I got it, realizing the emotional oomph of the dark ending would have devastated me much more intensely than the hopefulness lifted me up.
3.5, rounded up
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews