THE THINGS WE SAVE

In Zienty’s debut novel, a family struggles through loss and painful history, exploring the things that haunt us and help us remember, everything from artifacts to junk to treasures.

Claire Sokol is a mother drawn back to her hometown of Chicago to help her father sort through her grandmother’s belongings after her death. During the process, she finds artifacts that recall the memory of the boys that haunt her—her brother, Joey, and her cousin, Jamie. A museum curator, Claire knows the significance of relics—she saves photographs, vinyl records, a lock of hair in an old Marshall Fields box, a treasure trove of memories buried in a drawer. Aaron, Claire’s lover and the father of her daughter, Tally—a family unit to which Claire just can’t seem to fully commit—is an archeologist who says of artifacts and memories, “The questions are always the same: why is it there and what does it signify?” Zienty excavates a family story, carefully uncovering why Claire feels such anger toward her father, how Claire lost her brother and cousin, the latter having become her close comrade after Joey’s death, and why Claire feels guilt over her one-time admiration for Aunt Peach, Jamie’s captivating mother, in the face of her own mother’s death. The novel lyrically works at the tension between the need to save and the need to forget, coming to the realization that sometimes you need to do both in order to move on and try to forgive. Zienty clears away the layers of dust and grime with a steady hand, leaving the raw surface of emotion signified by belongings no longer buried and memories no longer forgotten.

A well-plotted, lyrical novel filled with the harsh emotions of a family torn apart by death.