Marguerite Poland’s eagerly
awaited next novel, The Keeper, is now available and looks at the power of
secrets, the power of love, and the power of stories
When lighthouse keeper, Hannes
Harker, is posted to a remote island with his young wife, he discovers
something long-hidden in the tower that causes him to lose his footing and
fall. Seriously injured, Hannes is evacuated to hospital and nursed back to
health by Sister Rika, to whom he haltingly tells the story of his life: of his
mother’s mysterious death, of his wild young wife, Aletta, and of the desolate
island inhabited only by the lighthouse keepers and guano workers – two
communities confined together, yet rigidly separated in one of the bleakest
places on earth.
With the arrival of a figure
from Aletta’s past, her own secrets erupt into the present, just as the
simmering tensions and injustices endured for so long by the guano workers
erupt into a single, shocking act of violence.
Written in the exquisite,
haunting prose for which Marguerite Poland is renowned, The Keeper is
the story of two generations of lighthouse keepers – men obsessed by their duty
to the light – and the wives who accompany them into a life of frightening
isolation.
Published in paperback by
Penguin, The Keeper retails
at R235. ISBN 9780143539032
(Review soon to follow on artSMart)
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