The Kept is a debut novel that focuses on a mother, Elspeth, and her 12 year old son, Caleb, set in upstate NY at the turn of the century. The book opens with Caleb's family being brutally murdered while Elspeth is away working as a midwife. The remainder of the book deals with Caleb's search for revenge and Elspeth's attempts to cope with the sins of her past.

This book had a lot of great components that generally I would really enjoy - - an upstate NY setting (where I am from), a lovely lyrical writing style, darkness and psychological suspense, historical setting, and a mother/son story. Unfortunately, it just didn't all come together for me, and it's a little hard to pinpoint exactly why not. I think a great deal of the issue was that I struggled to really believe the story. It's told well enough, but there were just too many strange circumstances to create an aura of believability. The actions of the son were just not realistic given his age. Make him 15 or 16, and I might have bought into it, but 12? The motivations of the various characters also seemed somewhat suspect to me . . .including the motivation behind the initial murder of the family. Each circumstance just seemed a little too far fetched. And while generally I find something more unusual in a story might grab my interest, the combination of too many unbelievable components did just the opposite. The ending is left for the reader to fill in to some degree, and I definitely do not think it was a successful attempt. It was as though the writer got tired of telling the story, and frankly I got a little tired of reading it as well.

All this being said, I think Scott has a lot of potential. His writing style really reminded me of Geraldine Brooks, and I think he has some interesting ideas. I'd like to see what he does next. For me, this book didn't quite work, but there were some great scenes and some fascinating elements. The creativity is there, and I look forward to seeing where he takes his talents. ( )

On finishing The Kept, I felt as if I had just witnessed horror, trudged an incomprehensible distance against crippling weather, endured the unendurable and collapsed. Scott writes so vividly that you feel you are taking every step of this journey with Caleb and Elspeth, and the scenes are painted so well that every wound seems to pierce at your skin and prick at your eyes. It had the makings of a great novel and yet at the end it had turned into only a good one for me.

I will not discuss the ending outside the spoiler, except to say that I found it unsatisfactory. I am not against ambiguous endings or even dropping the curtain before the last scene is played and letting the audience decide. Those are legitimate devices that surely have their place. In this case, however, it felt like a cheat. We have followed Caleb all this distance to see justice done or revenge taken and to have him simply left in the clutches of the ruthless murderers (who are totally inhuman throughout the book and then given some kind of adolescent, playing in the snow, humanity at the end) is frustrating. None of what these characters endure means anything if it ends here and evil truly triumphs.

I leave this novel a little bemused by what I might be expected to take away from it. Life is cruel, but should there not be redemption? People make mistakes, but some are not correctable, and if a mistake cannot be corrected is it then unforgivable? For that matter, if we are consciously choosing what we do is it a "mistake" or something much greater than that? Aren't we then responsible for every ripple that proceeds from that action? And finally, what makes us a family? What makes a mother or a father or a sister or a brother? Scott addresses some very profound issues, but I am not sure I had any more insight into them after the novel was finished than I did before it was begun. ( )

The story and the setting were interesting. The midwife who steals children because she cannot have children... it takes place at the turn of the last century in upstate NY.
Where it fails is the writing.. somewhat stilted. Some of the story is also a bit overly dramatic and also went off into confusing tangents such as the midwife posing as a man working for an ice packing company and the son working in a brothel.. the characters of Charles and Owen and London really have a confusing place in the story. I kept thinking they would be related to the search for the killers, but were not!
Overall, a good read, but it would have been better if the author would have eliminated some of the unnecessary characters and plot. ( )

The kept is a very different, very sad kind of novel. Not the same kind of novel I am usually reading, and that is a wonderful surprise. But the bleakness inherent in this novel made me WANT to struggle through to the end, to see if our main characters could create the type of closure they so desperately needed. The desolate landscapes and hopeless resolve created an atmosphere I was finding difficult to leave, to get some of my own rest. The dreary isolation, & pain follow the main characters out of the solitary, snow-blocked farm and into a busy western town, and while they both try to regain their composure, their wits, and their balance, neither character feels anything but alone and ghost-ridden.

This novel reminded me of Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove series. A coming-of-age story with plenty of vengeance, this debut novel by Scott is morally blurry in all the right places, and totally fascinating. Its weighty subject matter hides some HUGE surprises, who's reveals hit you like a gut-punch - low, and brutal, with lots of strength behind it. The characters themselves win you over, regardless of their reasoning for their "sins", and have you rooting for their much needed vengeance at the end. But the novel's merciless nature is ruined in the end by an ambiguous ending that leaves you not exactly knowing what has happened, and that's not fair..... A western/hauntingly & grimly beautiful vengeance story like this deserves much, much more. (I found this novel at my library's free online service, wilbor.libraryreserve.com)
3.5 stars, because of the ending. ( )

(Fiction, Historical, Suspense)

Amazon says: “In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York. Midwife Elspeth Howell returns home to the carnage: her husband, and four of her children, murdered. Before she can discover her remaining son Caleb, alive and hiding in the kitchen pantry, another shot rings out over the snow-covered valley. Twelve-year-old Caleb must tend to his mother until she recovers enough for them to take to the frozen wilderness in search of the men responsible.”

I borrowed this from my daughter’s bookshelf during my visit, although I had previously never heard of it. It’s an odd premise, and a rather odd book although it did keep me interested enough to finish it.

3 stars ( )