The Keep

New Yorker Danny is running from something. A loner who cannot bear to be apart from his Wi-Fi connection, he is in need of refuge. His cousin Howie is an enigmatic and successful former drug addict who just happens to own a castle.

As they turn the castle from crumbling ruin to luxury hotel, Howie and Danny must navigate their uncomfortable relationship. And the castle has some surprises of its own: a sinister baroness, a tragic accident in a fathomless pool, a treacherous labyrinth, and through all of this, a story within a story . . .

An unnerving, haunting and unforgiving tale of modern life and modern man, the novel before A Visit from the Goon Squad is filled with Egan's breathtaking style and remarkable voice.

Long-listed for Orange Prize 2008 (UK)

“This is one of those rare books that reminds you of exactly why you love reading. Full of wry reflections on communication, loneliness and the power of the imagination, it's so entertaining you'll forget to be impressed. - DAILY MAILProdigiously entertaining and profoundly moving - New York TimesEgan has conjured a surreal and creepy contemporary horror story which eerily veers between reality and fantasy. - SUNDAY TELEGRAPHDizzyingly inventive - Washington PostA novel boobytrapped with metafictional tricks and trap doors, it makes traditional gothic tales look positively homely in comparison - INDEPENDENTA smart tale that is horror, fantasy and thriller, yet never loses its hold on the reader. A gripping yarn - RTE GUIDE”

Prodigiously entertaining and profoundly moving' New York Times Book Review ' Dizzyingly inventive' Washington Post '[A] remarkable piece of work' San Francisco Chronicle 'Intelligent, intense and remarkably intuitive ... Jennifer Egan gives us the satisfying thunk of a fully understood if unexpected, kind of sense' The New York Observer 'It's precisely Egan's talent for tapping into the American subconscious - with deeply intuitive forays into the darker aspects of our technology-driven, image-saturated culture - that has established the author and journalist as a prescient literary voice' Vogue 'Jennifer Egan spins a haunting tale ... Egan's brilliance is in balancing the deliciously creepy elements of gothic-castle novels with the dead-on realism of a prisoner's life, to create a book worth keeping' Vanity Fair 'Egan's third novel ... is a strange, clever, and always compelling meditation on the relationship between the imagination and the captivities of modern life' The Atlantic Monthly 'Visionary ... at once hyperrealistic and darkly dreamed... With Egan's powers of invention running at full tilt, THE KEEP reads like a twenty-first-century mash-up of Kafka, Calvino, and Poe, in which the absurd meets the surreal meet the unspeakable - to edgy, entertaining effect" Elle 'Egan gets everything right ... Her skill will keep you marvelling at the pages you can't help turning' People 'Egan is both a captivating storyteller and an incisive social observer ... THE KEEP is sublime' 'Dazzling ... A metafictional tour de force' Chicago Sunday Times 'THE KEEP is a novel of ideas' Poets and Writers ** 'Remarkably fresh and inventive' Library Journal 'Atmospheric and tense, this is a mesmerizing story' Booklist 'An original thrill-ride of a novel' Times-Leader

Jennifer Egan is the author of LOOK AT ME, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

New Yorker Danny is running from something. A loner who cannot bear to be apart from his Wi-Fi connection, he is in need of refuge. His cousin Howie is an enigmatic and successful former drug addict who just happens to own a castle. As they turn the castle from crumbling ruin to luxury hotel, Howie and Danny must navigate their uncomfortable relationship. And the castle has some surprises of its own: a sinister baroness, a tragic accident in a fathomless pool, a treacherous labyrinth, and through all of this, a story within a story . . . An unnerving, haunting and unforgiving tale of modern life and modern man, the novel before A Visit from the Goon Squad is filled with Egan's breathtaking style and remarkable voice.

New Yorker Danny is running from something. A loner who cannot bear to be apart from his Wi-Fi connection, he is in need of refuge. His cousin Howie is an enigmatic and successful former drug addict who just happens to own a castle. As they turn the castle from crumbling ruin to luxury hotel, Howie and Danny must navigate their uncomfortable relationship. And the castle has some surprises of its own: a sinister baroness, a tragic accident in a fathomless pool, a treacherous labyrinth, and through all of this, a story within a story . . . An unnerving, haunting and unforgiving tale of modern life and modern man, the novel before A Visit from the Goon Squad is filled with Egan's breathtaking style and remarkable voice.

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