A timely tale of ownership and loss, loneliness and connection, and a meditation on all the stuff in our lives.

Home staging is an art of erasure. But in some cases—no matter how much clutter you remove, or how many coats of white paint you apply—stains bleed through, and memories rise from the walls like ghosts. Harriet, an elderly poet whose eccentricities have been compounded by years of living alone, must sell her beloved house. Having been recently diagnosed with dementia, she is being moved into a care facility against her wishes. When stagers Eleanor and Jacob are hired for the job, they quickly find themselves immersed in Harriet’s brimming and mysterious world, but as they struggle to help her, their own lives are unravelling.

Keep is a meditation on all the stuff in our lives—from the singular, handcrafted artifact to indelible, mass-produced plastics. As Jenny Haysom excavates the material of our domestic spaces, she centres the people within them and celebrates the power of memory, even when it falters.

JENNY HAYSOM has published her writing in magazines across Canada. Her debut poetry collection, Dividing the Wayside, won the Archibald Lampman Award and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Jenny lived in Ottawa for nearly thirty years, on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Algonquin Nation, and has recently returned to Nova Scotia, in Mi’kma’ki, where she grew up.

Jenny Haysom's profile page

“The braided narrative [in Keep] is so well balanced, each character a vivid and engaging presence in the novel, and it’s interesting (and refreshing!) to encounter a book presenting three different generations together and the genuine connections between them.” — Pickle Me This Blog

“Keep is a wry yet tender exploration of the way our homes and possessions carry our memories and reflect our values; we should not, the novel suggests, be too ruthless in our sorting.” — Quill & Quire

“Haysom is tender and generous with her characters … This is a book for anyone who needs to sit with and explore their feelings about material objects, and what we do with them, both as we live and as we prepare for the next stage in our lives.” — The Miramichi Reader

“[Haysom’s] prose is remarkable in its spareness. She adeptly represents intergenerational lives with gentleness, heart, and veracity.” — Booklist

"A rewarding and memorable read … Keep is filled with images and ideas well worth preserving." — Winnipeg Free Press

“Jenny Haysom reminds us that keeping is a complex, multilayered process ... [and] poignantly invites us to consider our mortality and impermanence.” — Getting Lit with Linda Podcast

“Astute and appealing … Keep is a compassionate novel in which three people learn that history and memory are ‘fluent and fallible.’” — Foreword