What Keeps Us: a novel in stories

by Jeanine Boulay

At Green-Wood Cemetery, the living and the dead share the same ground. For over a century, this Brooklyn sanctuary has sheltered both—the famous and forgotten buried beneath its rolling hills, and generations of neighbors walking its winding paths. The cemetery remembers what the city wants to forget.

In these linked stories spanning from the nineteenth century to today, ten women navigate impossible choices in New York City. In post-Civil War Manhattan, a school principal keeps her community together while losing connection with her daughter. During the Great Depression, a young wife keeps a lie in order to find work, and through it, her own voice. As the pandemic claims the city, four seniors keep themselves safe, trading their golden-years vitality for solitary survival. But it is Green-Wood that keeps them all—along with its archivist, Rebecca. When Rebecca discovers that her own origin story lies hidden among the countless histories she guards, remembering the forgotten becomes the work of understanding herself.

What Keeps Us excavates erasure and reinvention in the buried lives of ten New York women.

Genres: Adult Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2026

About the author

JEANINE BOULAY writes fiction exploring connections across time and place. For twenty years she lived and taught in Brooklyn, where Green-Wood Cemetery served as an inspiration for her first book, What Keeps Us. She has been awarded numerous writing fellowships by New York Public Library’s Cullman Center Institute for Teachers and the Academy for Teachers, where she studied under Karen Russell, Ian Frazier, John Wray, and others.

Boulay now works in educational leadership in her native Massachusetts, where she lives beside Mount Wachusett with her family. She is currently at work on a novel set at a historic building at the base of the mountain, that for a century served as a vacation home for women working in Boston's factories and now operates as a rehabilitation center for the ultra-wealthy.

Reviews

[TheNovelNomad · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Keeps Us is a quietly luminous collection that feels less like reading a book and more like being entrusted with memory.

Anchored in the rolling hills and shadowed paths of Green-Wood Cemetery, these linked stories stretch across generations of New York women — from post–Civil War Manhattan to the isolation of the pandemic. Each narrative stands on its own, yet together they form something greater: a meditation on erasure, endurance, and the invisible threads that bind women across time.

Jeanne Boulay writes with restraint and reverence. There is no melodrama here, only careful excavation. A school principal losing her daughter while holding her community together. A Depression-era wife finding her voice through a necessary lie. Four seniors bartering vitality for survival during COVID. Each woman faces impossible choices, and each story honors the quiet, complicated ways women endure history rather than simply inhabit it.

What elevates this collection even further is the presence of Green-Wood itself. The cemetery is not merely a setting — it is a witness. It remembers what the city forgets. Through Rebecca, the archivist who tends its records, the book gains a subtle emotional spine. Her own origin story, buried among the countless lives she preserves, becomes a powerful reflection on how understanding history is also a way of understanding ourselves.

The structure is delicately handled. The echoes between stories — sacrifice, reinvention, motherhood, loneliness, survival — create a resonance that lingers long after the final page. The connections feel earned rather than imposed, and the final weaving together is deeply satisfying.

There is something brave about a collection this restrained. It trusts the reader. It allows silence to speak. And in doing so, it gives voice to women history too often overlooks.

What Keeps Us is thoughtful, atmospheric, and deeply humane. It is a book about remembrance — and in reading it, you feel like you are participating in that act.

With thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC. This is a debut that feels both confident and necessary, and I look forward to seeing where Jeanne Boulay’s voice leads next.

[Quilted.reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a unique and powerful read. I went into this book not fully knowing what to expect but it ended up being one that really stuck with me.What Keeps Us is told through a series of linked stories that all connect to Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn where generations of New Yorkers both the living and the dead share the same ground. The book follows ten different women across different time periods from the nineteenth century all the way to modern day each facing difficult choices and challenges in their lives.Through these stories we meet women navigating huge moments in history, like the aftermath of the Civil War, the hardships of the Great Depression, and even the isolation of the pandemic. Each woman’s story is different, but they’re all tied together through the cemetery and through the idea of remembering the lives that history sometimes tries to forget. There’s also Rebecca, the cemetery’s archivist, who begins to uncover pieces of her own story hidden within the history she protects.What I really loved about this book is how meaningful it feels. It highlights voices and experiences that often get overlooked, especially the lives of women throughout history. Stories like this are so important because they remind us that behind every historical moment are real people, real struggles, and real lives that deserve to be remembered.The writing is thoughtful and emotional, and I loved how all the stories slowly connect together in such a beautiful way. It’s the kind of book that makes you pause and think about history, memory, and the people who came before us.I highly recommend this one, especially if you enjoy historical fiction that focuses on women’s stories and the hidden threads that connect the past to the present. It’s definitely a meaningful read and one I’m really glad I have a chance.

[Julie Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for an advance copy of this book. Such a beautiful book, it do take me a little while to get into and some stories grabbed me much easier than others but I loved the thread the author weaved through the storytelling and history. I absolutely loved the connections and tapestry she weaved! The extras at the end are a window addition also. I definitely recommend two readings of this book!!!

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Echo Road Press for this ARC!

This novel in short stories was such a beautiful reading experience and I absolutely loved Boulay’s writing style. I actually so compelled by one of the chapters that I impulsively booked theatre tickets for that night and am so grateful that this book inspired me to create that experience for myself.

Every one of these short stories explores a tiny snippet of each characters life but this is done so well that you cannot help but connect with every single character. I really rooted for some of the characters, cried with them and cheered them on.

I love that all of these stories are connected to one location, the Green-Wood Cemetery, but are all so different and unique. I also loved reading the authors note at the end of the book to find out where the inspiration for each story came from and which ones are based off of true stories.

I really enjoyed the ending of this book, with all of the stories coming together in a very beautiful and reflective way.

This was such a pleasant read and I’m sure that every reader will find a chapter that speaks to them. Beautifully written and very human.

[Kimberly W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed sifting through the lives of the diverse characters featured in the stories of Jeanine Boulay’s “What Keeps Us.” With the backdrop of the Green-Wood Cemetery intertwined through each narrative, the dualities of love and loss, despair and hope, sacrifice and utter disregard, and so much more kept me turning pages late into the night. It also often left me wanting more time with their individual lives and stories, although the last feature gave closure to many. The expansive time period from pre-Civil War to the present, allowed us to see a wide breadth of history through the lens and lives of each character; which was a much appreciated feature of this novel in stories.

Many thanks to the author, Jeanine Boulay, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC. I would welcome the opportunity to read more from this author.

[Mary Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began this book with skepticism. The format is not my normal preference, but the author has converted me. I loved every character who seemed to be telling their story directly to me. Each chapter was a deeply personal letter that lingers with the reader. A wonder of a book.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people, as they stroll through cemeteries, notice the names and dates on the headstones of strangers. They might comment about how old—or, sadly, how young—someone was at death. They might muse that a man who died in his twenties between 1942 and 1945 or in the late 1960s perhaps died fighting in World War II or the Vietnam War. If you linger long enough, every gravestone tells a story.

This lovely debut novel takes some of the headstones at Brooklyn’s landmark Green-Wood Cemetery as the launchpad for an intertwined series of portraits that trace the history of New York City from 1860 to 2020.

Each of the ten chapters could stand alone as an individual short story. But they are strengthened by the hints and parallels scattered among them—shotgun marriages, scenes at Macy’s department store, and especially Green-Wood itself.

A few of the main characters were real people, including the popular Civil War-era actress, Maggie Mitchell (who was a Confederate sympathizer and mistress of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth), and Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet, the first Black woman principal of a New York City school. Some of the other chapters bring in real events in the city’s history, such as the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and a less well-known airplane crash 41 years earlier. Most of the characters and all the plot details, however, are fictional.

History sometimes plays a key role in these stories and sometimes stays in the background. For instance, the Covid pandemic thoroughly upends the lives of the four central characters (as it did to all Americans) in “Shore Road.” The deceptively quiet “Her Big Day,” by contrast, seems to involve no great world event. The story could take place in almost any year between the end of World War II and the flowering of the women’s movement. (In fact, it’s set in 1961.)

The trail of racism is especially important throughout the book, from Mitchell’s pro-Confederate sympathies and the New York draft riots of 1863 that destroyed a Black orphanage to the long-overdue restoration of the 19th century “colored lots” at Green-Wood.

With settings in ten different years, author Jeanine Boulay has done an impressive amount of research. She vividly describes the changing street life, social mores, and clothing fashions of each era. Just as impressive is her creativity in imagining ten different, richly drawn casts of characters.

The final story, “The Lots,” is the only weak spot, drawing all the strings together a bit too clumsily. Still, the path to that point is fascinating, beautiful, and winding, just like the paths of Green-Wood itself. (Believe me: I live near that cemetery, and I’ve managed to get pleasantly lost almost every time I go off my standard route.).
(Reposted from Story Circle Network)

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten stories, circling around ten women from different eras, all facing the same problems in one way or another: patriarchy and racism, whether racial or otherwise. All struggling to find their place in the world, or trying to change their designated place.

This book was a joy to read. At the beginning I was slightly reluctant about the change of povs and timelines, but I came to love it. The way the author weaved everything together in the end was so rewarding in some way. Leaving little details here and there, reminding us of each heroine, without making a blatant effort of pointing it out. I found it especially entertaining to pick apart those crumbs, and I have to admit that it made me kind of emotional once I was done with it.

Each story was unique, but with the same underlying issues, the way women were treated by men and the way black people - and even worse, black women - were viewed in a time of social upheaval. Some of the storylines took place at the time of the Riots for example, and those were hot topics that caused a variety of reactions. Connecting with every main character felt easy enough, some more than others. The historical context behind it all made it even more interesting, especially when we got to see recent events as well, such as the pandemic.

A really notable read, that went by nicely, was engaging and informing. The author’s note in the very end was also a nice touch for me. Giving the readers an insight of the true events that inspired the book, highlighting that some of the characters were real people or that their stories are based off of real people, was so interesting in my opinion.

Plenty thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC, and special thanks to the author for putting in the work to make such a great book!!
(3.75/5)

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Keeps Us is a quietly powerful, deeply humane collection that threads together the lives of ten New York women across more than a century, all anchored by the haunting, hallowed grounds of Green‑Wood Cemetery. The result is a tapestry of stories that feel both intimate and sweeping, each one shaped by the city’s relentless churn and the histories it tries to bury.

The structure is beautifully handled. Each woman’s story stands on its own, yet the echoes between them—loss, reinvention, survival, the weight of choices made in impossible circumstances—create a resonant whole. From a post–Civil War school principal fighting to hold her community together, to a young wife in the Depression discovering her voice through a necessary lie, to four seniors navigating the isolating fear of the pandemic, the collection captures the shifting face of New York with tenderness and clarity.

Green‑Wood itself becomes a kind of witness, a keeper of truths the city forgets. Through Rebecca, the archivist who tends its records, the book gains a quiet emotional anchor. Her discovery that her own story is entwined with the cemetery’s past adds a gentle, compelling through-line, reminding us how memory—personal and collective—shapes who we become.

The writing is elegant and atmospheric, rich with empathy and a keen sense of place. These stories honour the women history often overlooks, illuminating the small acts of endurance that define a life. What Keeps Us is thoughtful, layered, and deeply moving—a meditation on remembrance, reinvention, and the quiet legacies we leave behind.

With thanks to Jeanne Boulay, the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

[Rekha O'Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions in this review are my own.

What Keeps Us by Jeanine Boulay is a collection of interconnected historical short stories set in New York, spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Each story imagines the lives of individuals buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, weaving together moments from major historical events — the winter storm of 1858, women’s suffrage, Black suffrage, the Great Depression, September 11, and even the impact of COVID-19.

It’s an ambitious and distinctly New York-centred concept. Boulay clearly has deep affection for the city, and that sense of place permeates every page. These stories feel like quiet tributes — small windows into lives shaped by the eras they lived through, often told from a female perspective. There’s a reflective, almost reverential tone to the collection.

For me, however, the short story format limited the emotional depth. Just as I began to settle into a character’s life, the narrative would move on. I found myself wanting more space — more time to truly connect and sit with each voice. Rather than fully immersive portraits, the stories felt like glimpses.

I suspect this collection will resonate more deeply with readers who have visited Green-Wood Cemetery or who have a personal connection to New York. There is something meaningful about grounding fiction in real resting places and imagining the lives behind the headstones. I admired the concept and the historical sweep, even if I didn’t feel entirely drawn in.

A thoughtful, place-rooted collection that will likely find its ideal audience among lovers of New York history.

[Mitchell Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book! I have never read a book quite like this. This book literally gives a condensed history of New York City, from the mid-1800s all the way to present day. However, most of the story shared are those that are in interned at a cemetery in Brooklyn, while some of the stories are intertwined most of them are not. The other stories shared are those that are living, but are trying to uphold and learn more about the dead and sharing their stories.

The stories that are shared are deeply centered on powerful women that are fictionalized that are based on real life people we learn what these woman advocated for and what they accomplished. However, each of these women were not without their faults, all these faults were examined, that was not the message of this book.

The message of the story is simple yet deep. You are more than just what your headstone says. You are a Complete person with a deep background and every story is worth sharing. I I’m excited for people to read this book and I want to thank NetGalley for giving me the option to read this book.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never considered myself a fan of short stories until I read Claire Keegan’s Antarctica, which completely changed my mind. So when I heard about Jeanine Boulay’s What Keeps Us—a novel in stories that follows ten women across generations in New York City, all connected by Green-Wood Cemetery—I was immediately intrigued. Each story shines a light on women whose voices have too often been ignored or forgotten, and together they create a tapestry of history, resilience, and hope. The writing is beautiful and evocative, and I found myself deeply invested in each character’s journey. The way the stories come together at the end is especially satisfying, offering a sense of closure that feels both earned and moving. This is a debut I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Would I recommend it? Yes!

[kei · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to netgalley for the arc, and thanks to the author for their work.

This was a bit of a though read, even though they were short stories, the topics were heavy but in a daily life setting. Some of the stories were better than others, but they were all enjoyable, showing us moments from the history and how it affected new york, all throught the eyes of 10 women and their relationships with the people around them. It shows the abuse, the steriotypes, the norms they had to follow, the expectations and their consecuences, not all of them with a happy ending, but all of them with these women finding themselves.

It was alright, the writing was compelling, but not adictive. The stories were interesting, but not all of them were special to me. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys short stories.

[Mally Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book just as it was launching, and it's luminous, powerful stories have stayed with me. Spanning 150 years of New York City history, these interconnected tales explore what women sacrifice to survive...and what gets buried in the process.

Boulay uses New York City's Green-Wood Cemetery as a witness to a changing city and to her characters' lives. From the Blizzard of 1888 to the Great Depression, from Brooklyn’s Park Slope plane crash to the reclamation work of the cemetery’s Freedom Lots project, Boulay threads together moments that illuminate New York’s past. Even better (at least for me), Boulay brings historical characters to life in these stories, from a young actress who was in love with John Wilkes Booth to 19th century Black educator Sarah Garnet. And I loved that Sojourner Truth gets a cameo in one story. A wonderful read.

[Miriam Zehavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What keeps us was a wonderful read from start to finish. I loved how it wove together history, the lives of women and how the unifying thread that brought it all together was the splendid backdrop of Greenwood Cemetery. While the stories are rooted in historical events, the lives of the characters are nuanced and layered. Each story hooked me immediately. They were uplifting, tragic and relatable. I loved every second of this book. And the language is superb. Every word is crafted with intention and care and love.

[Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the Author for providing the E-ARC for review consideration via NetGalley.

I have always adored this type of book, a novel of collective memories and experiences. Though this is the first time I encountered a different perspectives of this form of writing other than in Asia specifically, this was a heartfelt read. It captured the epitome of feeling like I'm opening various letters from the past, having a snippet of these ladies' world at the time.

[Pam Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is truly a gift. I enjoyed the journey through the eyes of all of the amazing and inspiring women. The author tells their individual stories in a way that leaves you wondering if it will all wrap up in a satisfactory conclusion, or if the reader will be left wondering.

I was breathless and heartbroken and hopeful all at the same time as I journeyed through the stories.

This book is a gem and the author a brilliant storyteller.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been looking for a book about or involving Green-Wood and this one hit the mark! I loved learning about the city and different time periods. I just wish it were longer or I felt all of the stories come together in a more cohesive manner.