Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. To order a copy for £17.20 go to or call 03. The story follows Elizabeth Keane, an Irish woman who lives in New York, but returns to Ireland after her mothers death to take care of the estate. With Norton’s wry sense of humour throughout, A Keeper is a gripping, thoughtful tale about the search for identity, belonging and self-possession.Ī Keeper by Graham Norton is published by Coronet (£20). These are women whose roles as daughters and mothers are messy and complicated. As for Elizabeth, “back in New York, she had felt guilty for not missing her mother more, but in this house she felt her absence like a physical ache”. For Patricia, “the dead don’t vanish, they leave a negative of themselves stamped on the world”. Norton cleverly mirrors the process of grieving in Patricia and Elizabeth’s stories, as the two women each mourn the passing of their mother.

The sense of Patricia’s isolation as a single parent in 1970s rural Ireland is sensitively handled, while in both the present and past sections, the politics of small-town communities are captured with insight and precision. Elizabeth’s loneliness is ever present though never overplayed, and her difficult ties with her extended family oscillate between frustration, anger, regret and resignation. Norton is perceptive on the nuances of relationships. A powerful, very sad story, beautiful writing, two time frames that are perfectly balanced. To describe too much of what transpires between Patricia and the Foleys would be to spoil an intricately constructed tale, but it is one in which menace and mystery abound, tackling themes of grief, isolation and a sociopathic determination fuelled by loss and hope. Urged on by a friend she answers a lonely hearts ad in the Farmers’ Journal and meets Edward Foley, a taciturn farmer who lives in an isolated cottage with his domineering mother.

A keeper graham norton review