The Keep

SOME QUICK BACKGROUND

The Keep was written by Jennifer Egan and published in 2006.

PLOT

Danny needs to get out of New York City, and when he receives an invitation from his cousin Howard to help renovate a castle in Eastern Europe, he jumps on the chance. The only problem is Danny and Howard haven’t really been close since there were teenagers, after a cruel prank that Danny played on Howard, trapping Howard in a cave and nearly killing him. Now that he’s in the castle, Danny starts doubting his cousin and wondering if this is all just an elaborate trap that Howard is setting to seek revenge.

Meanwhile in a prison, a prisoner named Ray is writing a story for his small creative writing class. Specifically the story he’s telling for his class is the story of Danny and Howard and the castle in Eastern Europe. Is the story fiction? Why is Ray even writing this story?

The two narratives weave between each other, coming to a head in the end where Howard’s true intentions are revealed, and Ray’s relationship to the events in the castle and just how fictional or real these events truly are becomes clear.

GENRES, STYLES, AND THEMES

Metafiction

Egan utilizes many of the conventions of metafiction. Egan’s novel explores the way we tell stories, remember stories, pass along stories, and how our perceptions sometimes miss the truth of our own reality.

Egan accomplishes the metafictional aims of her novel by using a number of techniques:

  • Frame narrative: Egan deconstructs the frame narrative in a really interesting way. Most frame narratives make the audience completely aware of the fact that they’re being told a story by the frame narrative. In Egan’s case, the reader doesn’t learn that Danny and Howard’s story is a story being told by Ray until halfway through the third chapter. Nevertheless, the narrative of Ray’s story is pushed forward by the telling of Danny and Howard’s story.
  • Historiographic Metafiction: The novel we’ve been reading, both Danny and Ray’s parts, are revealed to be an entire document that was sent to Holly, Ray’s writing teacher, by Ray. The entire work, therefore, stands as a found document. Danny’s part is Ray’s writing, Ray’s part is a sort of confessional to Holly. Even Danny’s part, beyond that, isn’t entirely fictitious, as it stands as a voice from beyond telling a story that Ray is just recounting as atonement.
  • Meta-reference: Ray often breaks away to directly address the audience. The audience is later revealed to be an audience of one, Holly, although if the work does exist as a found document, the audience can expand outside of Holly to the reader of the novel at that very moment.
  • Parallel novel: Egan’s novel tells the story of a novel occurring concurrently with the action of the novel itself, as Danny and Howard’s story exists as a novel that is being written and read within the framework of Ray’s story.
  • Story within a story: The story within a story exists on two levels in Egan’s novel: first, as the story of Danny and Howard, as written by Ray; second, as the story of Ray, as read by Holly.
  • Self-reflexive fiction: While the characters may not be directly related to Egan’s life, Egan creates a vivid portrait of both the act of writing and the act of sharing that writing, in the form of Ray’s class, taught by Holly.
  • Unreliable narrator: Both Danny and Ray qualify as unreliable narrators in each of their narratives. Both of their views are limited by their points of view and by what they want to share and what they would rather rationalize away.