Book Review: The Keeper of Lost Things

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan was my October book club selection. I enjoyed meeting a whole host of new-to-me words. What fun I had looking them up. Many of the words were understandable without the dictionary (used in context), but I love when a book teaches me something new. Have you ever used any of these words: salmagundi, etiolated, trilby, titian, gimcrack, termagant, feculent, mufti, portcullis, pellucid, or tombola? Even my spellcheck doesn't recognize a few. I doubt I'll ever use them, but at least I might remember their definitions.

I loved the premise of this book. After an author loses a memento just before his wife dies, he fixates on a growing collection of lost items, cataloging and keeping them in his locked study. I was a bit confused. The book indicated that Anthony Peardew wrote short stories from the items he found. Thus, when an introduced item had an italicized story, I assumed it was a short story he conjured. The stories instead offered the true origins of each item.

This reminded me of a woman in my old writer's group who made up stories for her grandchildren using props. She would set a small knick-knack in front of her and weave an imaginative tale to go with each. Plus, it brought to mind several things I have lost over the years. I wonder who may have salvaged them.

I loved the enticing opening paragraph. The sentences swept me in quickly by describing an individual travelling on a train. Oh, yeah - he's travelling inside a biscuit tin. Say what? Are they remains? How did they get in a biscuit tin? Why were they abandoned on a train? Anthony's first find in the book is alluring.

While the premise was intriguing, and the vocabulary expanding, the story itself was disappointing. I tired of it before it ended. It took forever to figure out how the second story-line (Eunice and her publisher) would intersect with the first story-line (Anthony and his assistant). I appreciated the author's excellent skill in bringing the story full circle, but I'd say I yawned through the final third of the book. Perhaps it was when the supernatural elements intensified. Maybe that wasn't my thing as it grew silly. Plus, I thought I would relate to it more because a few characters struggled with dementia, but even that wasn't sufficient to keep me rapt. I guess the book wasn't a wasted effort, but it wasn't a "keeper" either.