Kept (Scott) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
If not for the author's sparse, elegant prose, twanged with puritanical patois, The Kept might be simply agonizing. Instead, it is a haunting narrative, salvaged by precise language that never overreaches or oversells. Although there are moments when Mr. Scott might have gone lighter on excruciating details—a finger probing a bullet wound, the radiating agony of a cracked fingernail, a body brutally crushed under a block of ice—for the most part, his restraint is an excellent foil for the moral and physical desolation of his story and characters.
Ivy Pochoda - New York Times Book Review


(Starred review.) Scott’s accomplished debut—a dark, brooding tale set in upstate New York in the late 19th century—follows a compulsive midwife who must deal with the tragic consequences of her actions in order to form a family.... [A] work of historical fiction that is both atmospheric and memorable, suffused with dread and suspense right up to the last page.
Publishers Weekly


This taut revenge tale, as gritty as any western, is also an unusual coming-of-age story and compelling saga of twisted secrets…Scott writes with sustained intensity and strong descriptive powers.
Booklist


(Starred review.) The crimes of a benighted woman spark horrific blowback; in its wake, this wrenching first novel from the Massachusetts-based Scott tracks two lost souls in the New York hinterland of the late 19th century.... Scott is both compassionate moralist and master storyteller in this outstanding debut.
Kirkus Reviews