The Safekeep is not the book you think it is

I know I’m coming to this book way later than everyone else and long after it won the Women’s Prize, but I think many of the reviews I’ve seen have missed the essence of what is going on here. I read dozens of Goodreads reviews, for example, and only found one or two that mentioned the word “Jew.” It is simply and undeniably ironic that the erasure of the Jew from post-WWII Europe depicted in the book then carries over into the real-world responses to the book. I think that’s absolutely baked in to what the author is doing here and she pulls it off with remarkable elan for a debut novelist working in her second or third language. There are other takes available, but this was mine. The bookshop in Tel Aviv where I bought my copy and had an amazing book club meeting is here:   / bookhaustlv