Romance in the shadow of Anne Frank

Pitch Meeting for The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden

The Safekeep is a 2024 novel by Yael van der Wouden. It is set in the Netherlands in the early 1960s, and tells the story of paranoid, reclusive Isabel, who lives alone and jealously tends to the family home and its possessions, particularly a prized collection of china and silverware. When her brother’s girlfriend Eva comes to stay with her, Isabel is thrown – Eva takes up space and demands attention. But slowly the tension between them transmutes into a dangerous romantic attraction. But Isabel keeps counting the spoons and coming up short…

The Safekeep was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Women’s Fiction Prize. My un-spoilery review is that The Safekeep is a tense, lush period romance with an inspired twist, but lets itself down in the final stretch.

And for the more spoiler-tolerant:

Pitch meeting for The Safekeep

INT. Offices of the Creative Artists’ Agency.

ANNA STEIN (AS): So, Yael, tell me about the new novel.

YAEL VAN DER WOUDEN (YVDW): Well, I’m struggling a little with the ending –

AS: - We can figure that out together. So, tell me.

YVDW: It’s set in the Netherlands, in 1961.

AS: Swinging Sixties, got it.

YVDW: Not Swinging, so much as Not Very Long At All After World War Two.

AS: Oh. I see.

YVDW: So the protagonist, Isabel, lives in the house she shared with her mother before her mother’s death. She’s very houseproud and careful of the china which is kept behind glass. She’s convinced the maid will steal from her.

AS: Will she?

YVDW: She won’t. Anyway, she has two brothers who moved out. Their names are Hendrik and Louis. Hendrik is gay and their mother’s homophobia chased him away. Louis is a fuckboy, and Isabel’s horrible to his girlfriends. She’s also stiff and awkward Hendrik’s boyfriend, who is biracial, and resents him for taking Hendrik away.

AS:… she seems nice.

YVDW: She’s not.

AS: Well, as a supporter of women’s rights and women’s wrongs, I’m invested. Carry on.

YVDW: Isabel has vivid memories of air raids and of people knocking on the door of her house after the war, knocking and demanding they vacate the house, that it doesn’t belong to them. We find out too that the house is not hers, it belongs to Louis.

AS: So if Louis settles down, he might decide to move into the house and kick Isabel out.

YVDW: Exactly.

AS: So her paranoia about theft is a projection of a feeling that her house is not hers, that she might get turfed out at any moment.

YVDW: Exactly.

AS: I like it. Go on.

YVDW: Louis has a new girlfriend called Eva. Isabel thinks she’s fake and low-class and is immediately awful to her.

AS: Well, if Louis settles down with her, she’ll take Isabel’s house away from her.

YVDW: It’s not hers.

AS: She thinks it is. Go on.

YVDW: Well, anyway, Louis has to travel for work and he asks Isabel to put up Eva until he gets back.

AS: I assume Isabel’s a gracious host.

YVDW: As much as can be expected. Eva sleeps in Isabel’s mother’s room, and she takes up space, and she keeps poking at Isabel’s defences, and the spoons keep disappearing. Isabel’s mother’s spoons.

AS: Ah. Is Eva –

YVDW: Isabel suspects her, but doesn’t catch her. And the tension keeps building until they kiss.

AS: Ah.

YVDW: Yes. It’s very confusing for Isabel.

AS: Ah.

YVDW: She can’t stop thinking about the warmth of Eva’s hand on the curve of her waist, or the feel of her mouth, or –

AS: Oh, you didn’t say this was a romance novel!

YVDW: It’s not.

AS: … are you sure? Because this lingering on details is very –

YVDW: It’s not a romance novel. Anyway, Hendrik comes to visit with his boyfriend and they dance and they fuck and they go for a drive with Hendrik and they fuck and Isabel learns she can’t be quiet in bed with Eva and –

AS: … Are you sure this isn’t a romance novel? I think it would be quite –

YVDW: It’s not.

AS: Okay, I’m just – how long is the draft you have?

YVDW: About 280 pages.

AS: And where are we up to?

YVDW: About 150 pages.

AS: And all of it’s been the romance? And the – was it three separate sex scenes?

YVDW: Well, you see –

AS: No, it’s fine. Romance is great. Period romance is great. Period lesbian romance is great. Why don’t we just -

YVDW: It’s a romance, yeah.

AS: Okay.

YVDW: But it’s not a romance novel.

AS: All right.

YVDW: Anyway, Louis says he’ll be delayed a bit.

AS: Ah. The lovers’ idyll continues.

YVDW: Yes, but they’re reminded it’s temporary, even after Louis calls and tells Isabel he’s fallen for someone else and wants Isabel to kick Eva out. Eva says she’ll wait for Louis, even after Isabel presses her. She says without Louis she has nowhere to go, and Isabel can’t provide her anywhere.

AS: Ah. Well, Isabel did think Eva was poor.

YVDW: Yes. And Isabel’s mother’s spoons keep disappearing.

AS: Well, you said Isabel hadn’t caught Eva out.

YVDW: No, and she thinks it isn’t Eva. But then she finds her diary with a checklist of Isabel’s mother’s silverware and china.

AS: Oh.

YVDW: Problem?

AS: No, it’s just – a diary? It feels a little ‘florals for spring? Groundbreaking,’ Yael darling, if I’m honest.

YVDW: Well, the reason it’s a diary is it provides a timeline.

AS: A timeline of – ?

YVDW: Well, the diary shows that Isabel’s house was actually Eva’s house. This is when I remind you of when the novel is set.

AS: Not long after – ah.

YVDW: Yes.

AS: A Holocaust… romance…?

YVDW: a post-Holocaust romance.

AS: Right.

YVDW: Eva’s Jewish. When she and her family were taken to the camps and her father died there, her house was foreclosed and Isabel’s mother moved in.

AS: So the memory Isabel had of knocking on the door and her mother being told the house wasn’t hers –

YVDW: Yes. Eva’s brusque but angry.

AS: I’ll bet.

YVDW: Eva met Louis by chance and realised this was the only way she could get back into her house. And then when Louis had to travel for work, she saw her chance to move in, and she’s been sneaking the goods, one by one. But then she sees the way Isabel takes care of the silverware and china.

AS: …that her family stole from Holocaust survivors.

YVDW: Well, yes. And then she and Isabel kiss.

AS: Yes, how does Eva feel about that?

YVDW: She says ‘oh fuck’.

AS: … And?

YVDW: Well, Eva’s terse.

AS: Terse she may be, but I feel like she’d have feelings about kissing the woman hoarding her mother’s stolen china, in her mother’s stolen house. The woman who up until that point, you say, has been nothing but awful to her.

YVDW: Well, anyway, she takes the goods away, and the diary entries end.

AS: Shit. Yael, this is amazing. You clever thing, you had me thinking this was a swoony period romance, and then BAM! Now it’s a tense World War Two Heist.

YVDW: Yes.

AS: That’s terrific. My heart’s pounding. And the tonal shift! What a delicious bit of legerdemain. The ambiguity! Well, look, I’d love to –

YVDW: So anyway, back to Isabel.

AS: Back to Isa – aren’t we done?

YVDW: Well, so Isabel thinks back to her mother’s antisemitism, and how weird she is about her brother’s biracial boyfriend, and she demands for the house to be made over to her name, and she goes to Eva with the rest of her mother’s stuff, and asks Eva to move in with her –

AS: Whoa, whoa, whoa –

YVDW: The… end.

AS: Yael. Yael, darling, that is a LOT of development to cram into – how many pages?

YVDW: Twenty.

AS: Twenty?!? Out of two hundred and eighty?!?

YVDW: I did say I was struggling with the ending. And I meant for the gears to shift once we get to Eva’s diary.

AS: No, that bit’s great. But can we just – look, do you mean me to buy the romance between Isabel and Eva once we find out who Eva is?

YVDW: Well –

AS: Are we meant to believe in Isabel’s realisation of her own unchallenged bigotries?

YVDW: Well –

AS: How does Eva feel about Isabel?

YVDW: Well –

AS: Do we see inside her head again?

YVDW: Well, technically, we never do see inside her head. We’re inside Isabel’s, and then Isabel sees Eva’s diary entries.

AS: Right. How long are those diary entries?

YVDW: About ten pages.

AS: … In a two hundred and eighty page novel, one of the main characters of your romance gets ten pages?

YVDW: You said you liked the gear shift.

AS: I did! When I thought it was a genre shift. Could we not end it with Eva’s diary and leave it as a thriller with an open ending? Or if you must have a romance, give one of those sex scenes a general miss and spend a bit of time in Eva’s head? As it is, Yael darling, you’ve written me a romance between a Holocaust survivor and a direct beneficiary of the Holocaust.

YVDW [wincing]: Ugh, you’re right. Like one of those awful dark romances between a Klansman and Latina. Or like Life is Beautiful.

AS: Yes.

[pause]

AS: Hold on, let me look up the box office for Life is Beautiful real quick.

[quick typing sounds]

YVDW: You know, Anna, you’re right. I did say I was struggling with the ending. This has really clarified things for me, I’ll have a real think –

AS: Holy shit.

YVDW: Oh, did you find the box office?

AS: And the sales for that Klansman romance.

YVDW: … Wow, your eyeballs turned into literal dollar signs there.

AS [as one coming out of a trance]: Don’t change a thing, Yael.

YVDW: But you said –

AS: - Not a thing. We’ve got an auction and a Women’s Fiction Prize to win, babey.