Review: Keep in a Cold, Dark Place

Keep in a Cold, Dark Place by Michael F. Stewart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: KEEP IN A COLD, DARK PLACE by Michael F. Stewart

Fascinating, delightful, inspiring, yet supremely sad and subtly scary: KEEP IN A COLD, DARK PLACE is all of this and more. The story of a poorly-thriving, hardscratch existence of a potato-farming family, living just outside of a tiny town which itself can barely stay alive, this setting so reminded me of the Great Depression, and of the Dust Bowl so capably elucidated by author John Steinbeck. Yet this is contemporary, so it seems somehow worse.

Thirteen-year-old Limphetta ("Limpy") can never satisfy her rough Irish immigrant father nor her older brothers. Her mother died during Limpy' s birth, and so all the housework devolves to her, in addition to much of the farm work, and schooling. She just wants to create art, and to be loved. When she "coincidentally" unearths an antique box entombed under the barn' s cellar, Limpy, like Pandora, unleashes evil with good intentions. Maybe there is a real reason their farm has always been considered "cursed."

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