The Keep, Jennifer Egan
The Keep, Jennifer Egan
List: $21.95 | Sale: $15.37
Club: $10.97

The Keep

Author: Jennifer Egan

Narrator: Jeff Gurner, Geneva Carr

Unabridged: 8 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/01/2007

Synopsis

Award-winning author Jennifer Egan brilliantly conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep—the tower, the last stand—is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive. Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.

About Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan, the author of several books of fiction, is the recipient of the 2019 New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s 2019 Legacy Award for lifetime achievement. Her works including the New York Times bestseller Manhattan Beach, as well as A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Books Critics Circle Award; The Keep, a national bestseller; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award finalist; and The Invisible Circus, which was adapted into a major motion picture. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, McSweeney’s, the New York Times Magazine, and many others.

About Jeff Gurner

Jeff Gurner created the title role in the American premiere of A Prayer for Owen Meany at Playmakers Rep. He has appeared in productions on and off Broadway such as The Lion King, Five Course Love, The London Cuckolds, and Harrigan & Hart. His film and television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Third Watch, and Hey Joel!, an animated series for VHI.

About Geneva Carr

Geneva Carr is a stage, television, and film actress living in Manhattan. She has toured North America in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, performed on stage with Mary Tyler Moore in Neil Simon’s Rose’s Dilemma, and played a laugh track in Christopher Durang’s Obie Award–winning play, Betty’s Summer Vacation. Her film and television credits include Sex and the City, Hope & Faith, Spin City, Third Watch, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Chappelle’s Show, and The Three Little Wolfs.

Reviews

Goodreads review by karen on January 28, 2019

god, i am so glad jennifer egan won the pulitzer. when i heard she won, i said "her??" because i had read invisible circus and thought it was really average and not to my liking at all. but then i read goon squad, for science, which made me read this one, and i loved them both. and now i say loudly......more

Goodreads review by Steven on March 25, 2008

My review of this book will sound like it deserves more stars than I've given it, because overall, I only found one flaw in this fine homage to ghost stories and their tellers. Unfortunately, it's a major one, though I'm sure some will read right past it without so much as a blip. Egan sets up two f......more

Goodreads review by mark on April 10, 2021

Egan studies the effects that trauma and loneliness have on the forlorn homo sapien, forever living in the past, bound by the past, enacting the past all over again. What is a keep but a fortress? And what does one do with emotions perhaps best left unexamined? They are put away, imprisoned. And so......more

Goodreads review by Mattia on December 26, 2016

Video-review: [URL not allowed] Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016: [URL not allowed] Dope beyond words. An extraordinary Gothic novel that draws on its tradition to reflect upon the powers of the imagination, to stimulate the reader's, and to push......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on October 26, 2007

I picked this one up a month or so ago based on the NY Times Book Review writeup from forever ago, because was that review so positive that it glowed like a deep-sea anglerfish's esca? Oh, yes. But is that an apt metaphor? Also yes, because reading the book felt like being digested by an anglerfish......more

Quotes

“This neo-gothic tale…luxuriates in Wilkie Collins-style atmospherics.” New Yorker

“Prodigiously entertaining and profoundly moving.” New York Times

“Irresistibly suspenseful.” Los Angeles Times

“The Keep is a wonderfully weird read—a touch experimental in terms of narrative, with a hefty dose of gothic tension and mystery—balanced by an intimate and mesmerizing look at how the past haunts us in different ways.” Amazon.com

“A deft mix of psychological suspense, unconventional romance, and eerie allegory…This spellbinding novel kept us glued to the page right up to its haunting, unforgettable conclusion.” Barnes & Noble

“Jeff Gurner and Geneva Carr give flawless star turns. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile

“The Keep is a clever, quirky novel that ping-pongs the listener between a medieval castle that kept people out and a modern prison that fences people in until the two worlds collide.” Publishers Weekly

“Beautiful prose…the characters’ emotions are so real, the author’s insights so moving, that readers will be happy to be swept away. Intelligent, challenging and exciting.” Kirkus Reviews

Awards

  • New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books
  • Literary Hub Pick
  • AudioFile Earphones Award
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