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Check This Out: Yael van der Wouden & 'The Safekeep'

Roosmarjin Broersen

"The Safekeep" is set in the Dutch Countryside in 1961. It takes place over just a few weeks and focuses on two women, Eva and Isabel.

Isabel is living in a house filled with secrets that she’s lived in since a child. Her brother brings home his newest girlfriend, Eva, and declares she’ll be living at the house with Isabel for the summer.

Two women, strangers, living together in a creepy house that is somehow lost in time, like everything in it has been frozen for years. Until now.

Suddenly there are stolen kisses, laughter and a mind-blowing love story where the characters are terrified to admit they are two women falling for one another. The characters grapple with WWII being in the recent past and heavy ideas like displacement, complicity and victimhood.

"The Safekeep" is written with spare, sensual prose where every single word matters. This book is filled with desire, a desire for love and a desire to find a way to live with the past.


Check this Out features lively conversations with up and coming authors, and serves as a platform for diverse voices and stories to be heard. NHPR and The Howe Library are proud to be able to bring these conversations into your homes and headphones.

Rachel Barenbaum is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Atomic Anna and A Bend in the Stars. She is a prolific writer and reviewer. Her work has appeared in the LA Review of Books, Harper’s Bazaar, and more.
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