Bookslut | The Keep by Jennifer Egan
pretty well done summary - funny but less funny than the book - which was really really funny to me at points - funny funny Danny -
The publisher’s blurb says the two main characters, Danny and Howie, are “bonded by a childhood prank whose devastating consequences changed both their lives.” One, that sounds like they were in the movie River’s Edge or something; two, I hate book-jacket hint-dropping, because I spend all of my reading time trying to figure out what it is and waiting for the author to spill the beans; three, the statement isn’t quite accurate; four, is “whose” the correct pronoun for a prank? right the prank is the who. but all that bothers me is that it isn't accurate and niether is the rest of the jacket copy, I would like it if publishers wrote accurate jacket copy, can the author be more involved (is she?) ? Egan gives it up within 17 pages: Danny, in an attempt to be cool in front of an older cousin, sells out friend and cousin Howie and, oops!, almost kills him. Howie goes from a D&D-playing fatty nerd to reform school j.d., while Danny becomes the perfect son. Is that a bond? good sum
They don’t speak again for 20 or so years until the now wildly successful Howard (Howie is long gone) sends Danny a ticket to some mysteriously-named East-European country where he’s renovating an 800-year-old castle into a high-concept hotel -- so could Danny maybe just pop on over to help?
Danny sure could, but he has to pack a portable satellite dish first so he won’t miss any important calls while he’s gone. Danny, Danny… Danny's so funny While Howie was transforming into Howard, the handsome guy who Has It All, Danny cultivated his gift for getting close to people in power -- and then really pissing them off so that leaving the country to visit with a cousin he almost killed seemed like a godsend. good
Danny complains that, after 18 years in New York, he can walk down Lower Broadway and recognize every face without actually knowing anyone, and feels compelled to greet them; he can’t afford to be rude, really, when his entire life is about connections. (What he’s trying to say is: Girls would turn the color of an avocado/When he drove down the street in his El Dorado.)
So this castle has… a Keep, which the castle’s ancient-and-magical-realistic heiress good is using as a fortress against Howard and Co. ...
At the outset, the book seems to be Danny’s story, but then we find out that, no!, this campfire story is in fact the product of a prison writing class, and the author, who claims to be recounting a story someone told him, seems to have a lot of empathy for Danny huh I guess well he writes from Danny's point of view -- and writing talent, too. So we get bits of the author’s prison life mixed in with the initial narrative.Then the book has this excellent ending, but what’s with all of those extra pages? oh . we don't agree. I did not like the ending. the xtra pages were okay with me (maybe added sth, maybe not much, did not detract.) tell me how the end was excellent! felt like the only false note in the song to me. but I'd like to hear it differently...
the extra pages were okay. sort of pleasant. a kind of third incorporation ('layer') of the telling. H puts tgthr R's manuscript re D. 'whose story is it?' and there might be other things to say about it as H's story ~? .
sad though, this layering. because I felt like I lost D. and then that was almost okay bcs left with R and maybe it's his story and I am int in him. but the lost him? well no, I guess that's why I like the last part. H lost R, but her telling sort of gives more of him to us. and then mind the loss of D less.