- Published: 13 February 2014
- ISBN: 9781448150656
- Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 368
The Kept
- Published: 13 February 2014
- ISBN: 9781448150656
- Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 368
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