A dazzling debut novel about love, loss, and the courage it takes to start over. It's 1994 and Adam, a drug addict from New York City, arrives at a kibbutz in Israel with a medieval sapphire brooch. To redress a past crime, he must give the priceless heirloom to a woman his grandfather loved when he was a Holocaust refugee on the kibbutz fifty years earlier. But first, he must track this mystery woman down--a task that proves more complicated than expected. On the kibbutz Adam joins other lost souls: Ulya, the ambitious and beautiful Soviet émigré; Farid, the lovelorn Palestinian farmhand; Claudette, the French-Canadian Catholic with OCD; Ofir, the Israeli teenager wounded in a bus bombing; and Ziva, the old Socialist Zionist firebrand who founded the kibbutz. Driven together by love, hostility, hope, and fear, their fates become forever entangled as they each get one last shot at redemption. In the middle of that fateful summer glows the magnificent brooch with its perilous history spanning three continents and seven centuries. With insight and beauty, Safekeeping tackles that most human of questions: How can we expect to find meaning and happiness when we know that nothing lasts?
Safekeeping A Novel
An award-winning writer of fiction and memoir with an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, her debut novel, Safekeeping was a Boston Globe recommended read, acclaimed by The Montreal Gazette, The Jerusalem Post, and Tablet Magazine; A New York Public Library and National Jewish Book Club Pick and a number 2 on a BuzzFeed, 53 Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down. Her short memoirs received two Pushcart Prize honorable mentions and named a Best American Notable Essay in 2020
“Luminous, irreverent, and ambitious…. Full of romance, tragedy, betrayal, and the constant reminder that chaos is a driving force in everyone’s story…a wise and memorable debut by a novelist of great talent and originality.” - The Boston Globe “This emotional journey will leave readers with aching hearts and deepened empathy for waifs and strays of our world.”– Shelf Awareness, starred review “This beautiful story of loss and hope sweeps artfully through 600 years of Jewish resilience. With its richly drawn, believable characters and its great sensitivity, Hope’s novel is a striking debut.” – Booklist “An intricate tapestry of love and longing, failure, and redemption. Not every character will be saved but readers will keep rooting for them.” – Library Journal “There is no writer whose first novel I have awaited more eagerly than Jessamyn Hope, and Safekeeping surpasses my expectations. It’s a brilliant and captivating novel about the past, the present, and the future, about love and legacy, and it is written with Hope’s singular blend of intelligence, clarity, and grace.” - Peter Cameron, author of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You and Coral Glynn “Jessamyn Hope has wrought something wonderful…. she writes brilliantly….Like the exquisite gold brooch that shimmers emblematically at its center, Safekeeping seems to glow with a rich patina of timelessness, the sign of true art. Listen, do yourself a huge favor, read this book.” - Mark Dintendass, author of Old World, New World and A Loving Place