We Keep the Dead Close

I received an advance reading copy of We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper from the publisher (Grand Central Publishing). We Keep the Dead Close is scheduled for release November 10, 2020.

We Keep the Dead Close is an investigation into a murder at Harvard fifty years ago. Jane Britton is a grad student at the freshly merged Harvard-Radcliffe in the anthropology department who is found murdered in her campus apartment on the day she should have been taking her general exams. Rumors swirl out that she was murdered by a faculty member she had been having an affair with. Harvard and the surrounding community quickly become quiet on the story, preventing the case from being solved and allowing the myth of Jane to travel through generations.

While this is an investigation into what really happened to Jane, Becky digs into so much more. At its heart, this book is an exploration of the stories we build. When Becky is first introduced to Jane’s murder with a bit of myth and a hint of fact, she builds a story for what may have happened to Jane. Becky is aware that the story she has put together in her head may be far from the truth. Becky also points out that we all do this, we all build stories to surround our bits of memories and any facts we have at hand. Becky also points out the coincidence of Jane being in the field of anthropology, which is based on digging up any artifacts we can, then telling the stories that surround those facts.

Becky also explores what happens when the truth eventually comes out and it doesn’t match the story we have put together in our minds. Throughout her investigation, Becky encounters pieces of information that force her to acknowledge that what she initially thought had happened might not be reality. Even in the end, when the truth is found, and the police finally declare the case closed, Becky struggles to reconcile reality with her pre-built story, as they are so very different. She’s not alone. I was resistant to the closure as well. This seems to be human nature. We see this is our perceptions of history, in our (mis)conceptions of science, and in various other scenarios.

I did struggle a bit with the pacing of this book. Some sections feel a bit repetitive, as Becky ran into the same snippets of information repeatedly, and shared them with us each time. While I understand she wanted to share the investigation with us, some of this repetition slowed down the read for me. There were also spots where the inclusion of Becky’s personal life outside of the investigation pulled me from the overall narrative. Each time she would mention Jay, I would have to stop and ask myself who Jay was before I could rejoin the book. I think this personal thread either needed to be expanded to allow it to take up space in my conception of the narrative or cut out.

In the end, I was pulled into the story of Jane, her time at Harvard, and her murder. It forced me to really think about the stories we deliberately tell others, and the stories we tell ourselves, and how reluctant we can be to revise them.