Keepsake

April 23, 2012
In Riggle’s touching and timely latest (after Things We Didn’t Say), Trish is a divorced mother struggling to raise two sons, the elder of whom, teenager Drew, flees his mother’s house because of her obsessive hoarding. When younger son Jack is injured in the cluttered home, a concerned social worker gives Trish a wakeup call and chilling ultimatum: clean up or lose your son. This spurs Drew to reach out to Mary, Trish’s estranged sister, for help. Mary and Trish’s mother had a hoarding problem as well, and Mary reacted by obsessing over the cleanliness of her house. Mary reluctantly goes to Trish’s aid, but she quickly realizes that the job is more than she can handle, so Mary enlists college friend (and psychologist) Seth to help. As the trio move through the strata of Trish’s material life and fraught emotional past, the women struggle to come to terms with their mother’s behavior and the stark differences in their responses, and try to remember that they are cleaning house for the sake of the next generation. Agent: Kristin Nelson.

Starred review from May 15, 2012
Riggle's fourth novel (after Things We Didn't Say, 2011) is a sensitive portrayal of a dysfunctional family struggling to make peace with their pasts. Trish thinks of herself as just a distracted, messy housekeeperbut when her young son, Jack, suffers a broken collarbone after a pile of papers falls on him, Child Protective Services comes calling, forcing her to deal with the fact that she has inherited her mother's hoarding habits. Trish's estranged sister, Mary, is the complete oppositewhen her white carpet gets a footprint on it, she spends an hour with a scrub brush trying to get it clean. Much to Trish's chagrin, Mary comes to help her get her house (and life) in order so that Jack is not removed from the home. Meanwhile, Trish's ex-husband and her older teenage son are not sure they want any part of this family anymore. And Trish knows exactly what has driven her to this compulsionbut refuses to share her pain. Riggle offers a marvelous and sensitive portrayal of rich, full characters, using realistic dialogue and intriguing secondary subplots. The housecleaning scenes leave the reader feeling horrified yet sympathetic at the same time. She also employs a light sense of humor, while never making fun of the disorder at hand. Highly recommended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)