The stunning fictional debut from Dutch-Israeli rising star Yael Van der Wouden gets its paperback release
Self-professed "Dutch-Israeli mixed-bag-diaspora child" Yael Van der Wouden started gaining notoriety in 2018 after The Best American Essays published On (Not) Reading Anne Frank. Peppered with wry humour, the essay touches on her frustrations at being compared aesthetically to the young diarist and coming to terms with her own Dutch Jewish identity. Her breakthrough, however, came last year when her first novel The Safekeep was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and then recently took home the 30th Women's Prize for Fiction. It is an astonishing debut, full twists and turns.
Early on we learn that protagonist Isabel lives alone in what used to be her mother’s house in rural Holland. It is 1961 and the recent past is shrouded in mystery. What is clear, is that Isabel is one of three children and her elder brother Louis is coming for dinner with his new girlfriend Eva. Isabel takes an instant dislike to her, finding even the smallest things annoying: her way of talking, her appearance and her sense of entitlement. Then comes the big blow: Louis tells her that Eva is going to stay for several weeks while he's away on business.
Yael Van der Wouden winning the Women's Prize for Fiction © Women's Prize Trust
It is apparent is that Isabel has a very intense, even strange, relationship with the home she grew up in. This feels somehow bound up with her extreme isolation. She is not simply single, she is almost defined by her solitude.
Even more mysterious is what happened to the siblings' parents, although we are aware that their mother is dead. An obvious clue lies in the date – the novel begins soon after the war. There are two passing references to "the camps" near the beginning, but nothing more for a long while and, as the novel unfolds, there are other curious fragments. "All of them gone?" Isabel asks in passing. Later, someone mentions "airplanes" and "bombs". There is also a brief reference to a rabbi, Pesach and a menorah.
"Isabel found a broken piece of ceramic under the roots of a dead gourd" is the opening line of the book and, over the next couple of pages, the references to fragments, shards and pieces of crockery abound. This is how the novel continues – an underlying fascination with things that have been broken and cannot, apparently, be repaired. Suddenly a novel about a non-Jewish family starts to feel very Jewish indeed as the fragments come together. This is a story of secrets, and not just those of one family, but of a whole country.
At the heart of The Safekeep is an intense set of feelings: between siblings; between Isabel and Eva; and between Isabel, her late mother and the house in which she lives on her own. What threatens her way of life? Why is she so very alone? And what, if anything, could transform her situation? It’s as if she is frozen and no one can break through the ice that keeps her from connecting with others.
Finally, the novel has a fascinating relationship with time. It begins in 1961, but shifts back in history. Two dates have a particular significance, 1942 and 1946, and they become more important as the story moves forward, but also back in time, and then forward again.
The Safekeep is an extraordinary debut that tackles loneliness, lives haunted by an unknown past and the possibility – or impossibility – of change.
By David Herman
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden is out now in paperback. penguin.co.uk
Read more about Yael van der Wouden in the Summer 2025 issue of JR.