FICTION

A Keeper By Graham Norton, Hachette, $37.99

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What a surprise, a pleasant one, was A Keeper by Graham Norton. My perception of Norton is of the devilmay-care television personality and even now, having read A Keeper ,I am finding it difficult to reconcile the author with the TV crazy guy.

The primary character Elizabeth Keane is unpretentious, smart but also at pains with her past, as she confronts her childhood, returning from her present day life in New York, to the small Irish town, as a result of her mother’s death. Sketchy is probably the best word to describe Elizabeth’s connection to her past. Who was her father? Just who was the person she saw as her mother? She receives not just the house that she shared with her mother, but another she had no memory of.

Graham Norton’s writing is fresh, emotional, and honest. A Keeper has certainly confirmed another side to the highly popular TV comedian.

— Tony Nielsen