What We Keep

What We Keep
By Elizabeth Berg

At the risk of sounding unabashedly biased, I love Elizabeth Berg. I have immensely enjoyed every one of her novels, and I’m pleased to see that there are still a few I haven’t read yet. I would describe her novels as intimate and personal portraits of ordinary lives. What makes Berg’s novels extraordinary is her ability to create nuanced and authentic characters. In the simplest terms, her books are about the complexity of human relationships. Her characters are compelling and complicated, and Berg demonstrates amazing insight in ways that always resonate with me. As I read her books, I always have moments when I think “I, too, have felt exactly like that.”

“What We Keep” is a novel about a woman (“Ginny”) struggling to come to terms with the very complex relationship she has with her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in 35 years. The book alternates between Ginny’s memories of her childhood and her present life as a woman of 47. What I liked best about “What We Keep” was the relationship between Ginny and her sister. Berg beautifully captured the simultaneous closeness and tension of their relationship. This is a lovely book.