Storming the Keep
Categories: Fiction
I like ghost stories especially when the ghosts aren’t the usual apparitions.
In Jennifer Egan’s The Keep, Danny is on his way to an unknown location in Europe to help his cousin Howie renovate a castle. He is an electronics junkie who needs to be connected at all times (by cell phone or email) to the large group of people in his address book.
Danny is also running away from the mob, which is the main reason he takes the one-way ticket to a place he doesn’t know and can’t remember the name of. He also has an estranged relationship with his cousin because of a childhood prank that nearly took Howie’s life.
Juxtaposed against the introductory protagonist is Ray, who is similarly cut off from the real world but in a different way. Danny in fact is just a character in a story Ray is writing for his prison’s creative writing class.
In The Keep Egan explores human relations in a disconnected world. Danny has a fervent need to be in aural touch with people but he is not necessarily connected to those before him. Howie recognizes that his cousin lives in a world of his own and wants to harness his imagination for the unplugged hotel he is creating.
Along with writing the neo-gothic tale, Ray’s preferable reality consists in his head; dreaming that the little interactions between him and his writing teacher, Holly, would be equivalent to other things in the outside world. His fixation on her propels him to write a story that will get her attention.
Egan’s “ghost story” makes one wonder if we are as present in day-to-day living with all the gadgets that surround us? And, most importantly, are we connected to ourselves?
