25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
If you loved The Safekeep, you will devour these 3 books
Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep is having a moment. The Dutch author's debut novel first captured global attention in 2024 when it made the Booker Prize shortlist. Now, fresh off its Women's Prize for Fiction win, it is once again in the limelight: bookstagram cannot stop swooning over it, and book clubs have added the haunting tale of repression, desire, and unraveling secrets in post-war Netherlands to their reading roster.
If you were captivated by The Safekeep, you are likely craving more books that plumb the depth of complicated familial relationships, queer desires and the heavy baggage of history. Here are three reads that share similar themes of intimacy, identity, and the weight of the past.
For readers who appreciated The Safekeep's exploration of personal and historical legacies, Martyr! offers a poetic dive into identity, addiction, and the search for meaning. Cyrus Shams, a recovering alcoholic and Iranian-American poet, grapples with grief, art, and the ghosts of his past. Akbar's prose is lush and philosophical, weaving together themes of queerness, what it means to be an immigrant , and self-destruction with raw honesty. Like The Safekeep, this novel balances intimacy with existential weight, making it a perfect follow-up.
A timeless classic that, much like The Safekeep, explores forbidden desire and the suffocating grip of societal expectations. Set in 1950s Paris, Baldwin's novel follows David, an American man torn between his engagement to a woman and his passionate affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender. The tension between private longing and public performance is palpable as one grapples with the themes of secrecy, shame, and self-denial.
Treated with mythic grandeur, the The Song of Achilles has become a modern classic of LGBTQ+ literature. Miller, who studied classics, reimagines Homer's Iliad through the lens of Patroclus, an exiled prince who becomes Achilles' closest companion. The story traces their relationship from childhood friendship to passionate love. In the battle of Gods and demigods, the novel shows how the most profound wars are waged not with swords, but with hearts. The 3,000-year-old love story that reads as freshly urgent as any contemporary romance as the inevitable tragedy gains new power when seen through Patroclus' devoted eyes.
