LITERAL REMAINS

Sarah Langan’s debut novel centers around the small town of Bedford, Maine. Many of its citizens consider Bedford to be cursed. The Clott Paper Mill, long the beating, polluted, heart of the town has closed, forcing the majority of the citizens into unemployment and even harder means of survival. The mill closes after destroying the local environment; the water is bad, the air is toxic, and most of the fish in the rives and wildlife in the woods have been killed off due to pollution. And every year it rains for seven days striaght in the Spring; and the rain burns. The entire town has been upended. Only the futures of those planning to move to other towns look anywhere near hopeful.

The people of Bedford, though, were polluted before the mill puffed its toxins into the air. Everyone has their secrets, their deadly thoughts and grudges. And it seems nearly everyone hates Susan Marley, even her mother. Susan has grown from the pretty girl next door to the town weirdo, the local loon. Some even whisper she is a witch. Susan wanders the rainy streets at night, most often barefoot and underdressed, even in the dead of winter. People meet her gaze and have bad thoughts, so people avoid her; until Susan shows up in their dreams and shows them sights they would rather not see. It only becomes worse after Susan dies in a questionable incident involving her former teacher/lover Paul Martin, the town drunk. Not only does Susan come back, she brings all the dead with her, forcing some of Bedford’s most respected citizens to face the skeletons they thought were long buried, sometimes quite literally.

The Keeper is an intricate story beautifully written by Sarah Langan. Not all the plot twists are big surprises, but the characters are believable and you can’t help but be pulled in by Langan’s oddly poetic prose; she illustrates small town life perfectly, capturing all the melancholy and youthful yearnings of something else that some people never outgrow. The Keeper is often mind-bending, but always engrossing.

4 out of 5

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