The Kept: A Novel (P.S. (Paperback))

Set in rural New York state at the turn of the twentieth century, superb new talent James Scott makes his literary debut with The Kepta propulsive novel reminiscent of the works of Michael Ondaatje, Cormac McCarthy, and Bonnie Jo Campbell, in which a mother and her young son embark on a quest to avenge a terrible and violent tragedy that has shattered their secluded family. In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York. Midwife Elspeth Howell returns home to the carnage: her husband, and four of her children, murdered. Before she can discover her remaining son Caleb, alive and hiding in the kitchen pantry, another shot rings out over the snow-covered valley. Twelve-year-old Caleb must tend to his mother until she recovers enough for them to take to the frozen wilderness in search of the men responsible. A scorching portrait of a merciless world of guilt and lost innocence, atonement and retribution, resilience and sacrifice, pregnant obsession and primal adolescence The Kept introduces an old-beyond-his-years protagonist as indelible and heartbreaking as Mattie Ross of True Grit or Jimmy Blevins of All the Pretty Horses, as well as a shape-shifting mother as enigmatic and mysterious as a character drawn by Russell Banks or Marilynne Robinson. After Her Husband And Four Of Her Children Are Brutally Murdered In The Winter Of 1897, Midwife Elspeth Howell, Along With Her Surviving Son, Twelve-year-old Caleb, Takes On The Frozen Wilderness To Find The Men Responsible For Shattering Their Family. James Scott. 'Scott is a master of mood' New York Times Book ReviewHow far would you go for your family, for love, for revenge?In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York.