The Kept
Play sample
  • Published: 13 February 2014
  • ISBN: 9781473506299
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 12 hr 10 min
  • Narrator: Kate Udall
  • RRP: $24.99

The Kept

Formats & editions
EBook
13 Feb 2014
Audiobook
13 Feb 2014
Paperback
2 Jan 2015
Buy from…
Apple Books Audible Google Play Kobo Libro.fm Spotify

How far would you go for your family, for love, for survival, for revenge?

A debut novel of big skies, deep snow, and open wounds, the ambition and sheer brilliance of The Kept is astonishing.

How far would you go for your family, for love, for revenge?

In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York.

Elspeth Howell returns home to find her family brutally murdered. The only survivor is her twelve-year-old son who witnessed it all.

Wounded, frightened and with retribution in their hearts, mother and son set out into the frozen wilderness to track down the red-scarfed men who killed their loved ones in cold blood.

Their journey leads them to a rough-hewn settlement on the edge of ice-filled Lake Erie, a merciless place where violence abounds. Here, forced into a brutal adulthood, Caleb begins to discover truths about his mother he could never have anticipated and Elspeth must finally confront the terrible urges that envelop her. All the while, the memory of Caleb’s brothers and sisters presses him onwards.

Big skies, deep snow, open wounds: The Kept delves deep into what it means to be a mother – and to be a son. It asks us how far we would go for our family, for love and, ultimately, for revenge?
  • Published: 13 February 2014
  • ISBN: 9781473506299
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 12 hr 10 min
  • Narrator: Kate Udall
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

James Scott

James Scott is Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Texas at Austin. James is a statistician and data scientist who studies Bayesian inference and computational methods for big data. His has collaborated with scientists in a wide variety of fields, including health care, nuclear security, linguistics, political science, finance, management, infectious disease, astronomy, neuroscience, transportation and molecular biology. He has also worked with clients across many different industries, from tech startups to large multinational firms. James lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Abigail.
His academic research has been featured in The New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, Fox, the BBC UK, BBC World News, Radio 4, The Guardian and many other prominent media outlets.

Also by James Scott

AIQ
See all

Praise for The Kept

With its vivid sense of time and place, lyrical writing, and complex questions of what constitutes a family, The Kept is an outstanding debut by a bright new voice in fiction.

Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove

A deeply moving, disconcerting novel… Scott manages something quite difficult here, balancing both terror and tenderness with apparent ease. By the end of The Kept, you’ll be convinced that he can do just about anything.

Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang

Mysterious and compelling... James Scott has written a riveting and memorable debut novel.

Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers

A thrilling adventure and a literary triumph

Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

Darkly beautiful... The Kept is a rare blend of brutality and empathy, emotion and close observation. I thought at times of Cormac McCarthy's work and of the novels of David Vann. At other times it brought to mind Stef Penney's The Tenderness Of Wolves and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. But there's something wonderfully distinctive about The Kept... A literary page-turner of the highest calibre by a writer of serious talent.

Jonathan Lee, author of JOY

Scott is [a] master storyteller in this outstanding debut

Kirkus (starred review)

Atmospheric and memorable, suffused with dread and suspense right up to the last page.

Publisher's Weekly (starred)

Dark and mysterious… A novel whose daring is found in its bleakness… The plot unfolds with a weighty languor reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy… Sparse, elegant… haunting.

New York Times

Feels like the shell of a Cormac McCarthy novel filled with the intricate yearning and familial strife of a Lorca play… A gripping combination I don’t think we’re likely to find anywhere else.

The Rumpus

Dark and brutal… Never lets up until the climactic scene, in prose that’s brooding and intense right up until the final paragraph… So packed with incident and character, and so fluidly paced, that it’s brought vividly to life by Scott’s meticulous control

Toronto Star

Reads with the stark clarity of a Johnny Cash song

Washington Post

Winter and discontent... Scott is the master of mood... Haunting'

New York Times Book Review

Artisan-like control... As breathless as it is inevitable

Boston Globe

A classily written crime novel that is also an atmospheric evocation of a bygone era.

The Sunday Times