The Kept -- James Scott

<p><strong>"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." -- <em>New York Times</em></strong></p><p><strong>Set in rural New York state at the turn of the twentieth century, superb new talent James Scott makes his literary debut with <em>The Kept</em>--a propulsive novel reminiscent of the works of Michael Ondaatje, Cormac McCarthy, and Bonnie Jo Campbell, in which a mother and her young son embark on a quest to avenge a terrible and violent tragedy that has shattered their secluded family.</strong></p><p>In the winter of 1897, a trio of killers descends upon an isolated farm in upstate New York. Midwife Elspeth Howell returns home to the carnage: her husband, and four of her children, murdered. Before she can discover her remaining son Caleb, alive and hiding in the kitchen pantry, another shot rings out over the snow-covered valley. Twelve-year-old Caleb must tend to his mother until she recovers enough for them to take to the frozen wilderness in search of the men responsible.</p><p>A scorching portrait of a merciless world--of guilt and lost innocence, atonement and retribution, resilience and sacrifice, pregnant obsession and primal adolescence--<em>The Kept</em> introduces an old-beyond-his-years protagonist as indelible and heartbreaking as Mattie Ross of <em>True Grit</em> or Jimmy Blevins of <em>All the Pretty Horses</em>, as