The Keep

This shimmering layered tale is too literary to be called gothic, though it has all the elements. Jeff Gurner narrates the story of Danny, who arrives at a castle in Eastern Europe to help his cousin turn it into a luxury hotel and finds that the place's mysterious and bloody history is alive and at work, and so is a never forgotten episode of adolescent cruelty that estranged the cousins decades before. But wait--perhaps this whole tale is being made up by a convicted murderer named Ray in his prison writing course, where respect for powerful storytelling becomes a life-and-death matter. Can Egan balance this complex structure and also satisfy our longing for narrative resolution? Absolutely, and Gurner and Geneva Carr give flawless star turns. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

April 3, 2006
Claustrophobic paranoia, intentionally mediocre writing and a transparent gimmick dominate Egan's follow-up to Look at Me
, centered on estranged cousins who reunite in Eastern Europe. Danny, a 36-year-old New York hipster who wears brown lipstick (and whose body can detect Wi-Fi availability), accepts his wealthy cousin Howard's invitation to come to Eastern Europe and help fix up the castle Howard plans on turning into a luxury Luddite hotel (check your cell at the door). In doing so, Danny can't help recalling the childhood prank he played on a young Howie that left the awkward adolescent nearly dead—or so writes Ray, the druggie inmate who's penning this novel-within-a-novel for his prison writing workshop. Subsequent chapters alternate between Danny's fantastical castle travails (it's home to a caustic baroness bent on preserving her family seat) and Ray's prison drama. There are funny asides and trappings (particularly digital technology) along the way, and the sendup of castle narratives generates some chuckles. But the connection between the two narratives, which Egan reveals in intentionally tawdry fashion, feels telegraphed from the first chapter, making for a frustrating read.

October 2, 2006
When Gurner reads conversations, he announces the name of the person before reading the dialogue. This technique is as annoying as it is helpful, making the recording sound more like a grade school teacher reading aloud rather than a sophisticated audiobook production. Inmate Ray is working on a gothic novel at his prison's writing workshop. Eagan alternates chapters between him in prison and the adventures of his alter ego, Danny, within the novel. The speech patterns of Ray's fellow inmates are nicely individualized, but the women who inhabit the embedded novel are too similar. Geneva Carr appears only in the third part of the novel (on the last disc). As the voice of Ray's creative writing teacher and love interest, Carr explores the complexities of a woman who falls for a prisoner and makes listeners wish she'd had more to do in this production. The Keep
is a clever, quirky novel that ping-pongs the listener between a medieval castle that kept people out and a modern prison that fences people in until the two worlds collide. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 3).