The Power of Queer Romance Set in Post-Nazi Life (2025)

Books

Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel,The Safekeep, weaves a tale of obsession and history between two women thrown together in the Dutch countryside.

By Emily Bazelon

The Power of Queer Romance Set in Post-Nazi Life (1)

Gabfest Reads is a monthly series from the hosts of Slate’sPolitical Gabfestpodcast. Recently, Emily Bazelon talked with authorYael van der Wouden about her debut novel,The Safekeep. They discuss why Yael chose a romance between two women to form the narrative arc in her story about people who keep the possessions of Jewish people that were sent to concentration camps.

This partial transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Emily Bazelon: Why is the central narrative of the book about two women falling in love? How does that fit into these historical themes that you are exploring?

Yael van der Wouden: The truth is that I’m queer, and so I wanted to write and see a story about two women, and that’s really what was interesting to me. But of course, naturally it becomes fascinating in the way that other people respond to them, in the way that theydon’trespond to them because they’re invisible. The very idea that they could be attracted to each other or love each other, it doesn’t come up. No one seems even to suspect them of anything. Not even Isabel’s gay brother who believes that she just needs to find the right man, and that anytime that she’s nervous or uneasy around men, it’s because she’s just shy—she needs to open up. So, there’s several ways of being invisible in this book, of being not seen by your environment for who you are.

I think the queer love story accomplishes something else, which is it changes all of the power dynamics. It means that Isabel is also vulnerable in this way, that made me much more sympathetic to her. Suddenly all her oddities went from being obsessive and irritating to having a completely different valence in my head. She and Ava are doing something transgressive, and it changed how I thought about Ava coming into the house as well. So, I actually felt like it totally makes sense that you would’ve written it out of experience and wanting to explore themes for that reason, but I think it also is very powerful. I was thinking if this book was a heterosexual love story, there are all kinds of things that would throw off the power of the story that you’re telling and how it fits into this historical episode, right?

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Yeah. I think if Isabel was a man, then it would just feel like the natural progression of the story. Of course, the sister’s girlfriend appears, and that’s going to be the love story. But because we have Isabel who does not even know herself what she wants, does not even recognize desire, she thinks, she doesn’t understand it until she’s sitting on her bed’s edge consuming a pear in its entirety, and to have it be sort of this…I wouldn’t say unexpected; I think certain readers will always expect or at least look for it between the lines.

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It’s foreshadowed, I would say. It hasn’t come out of totally nowhere.

Exactly. You see very quickly that Isabel is staring a little bit too hard. I was trying to recreate that feeling when I read a book and I’m like, “Oh my God, will they?” And then they never do because it’s never the main story. And then to just fully commit to that, to the bit and be like, “yes, they’re going to,” it’s very freeing. But also, I think it creates a sense of something that is simmering below the surface that Isabel herself does not understand, which at first is her own sexuality, and then it’s just history as a whole. I think that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve that if it was a straight love story. It would’ve felt far more of an open goal rather than something simmering under the ground coming to get you.

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I think that’s right. And also, if Ava had been a man, then I think I would’ve felt like maybe she was taking advantage in some way. It would’ve changed that part of the story too, and made that character potentially a little bit menacing.

The point is of it all, is that neither of them own anything. Isabel has the house, but the house is not hers. It’s her brother’s. She has no property. She has an allowance, but that’s as far as it goes. And to have the both of them want in a world where they are allowed to have so little, I think it’s more transgressive than if it had been a different way.

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The Power of Queer Romance Set in Post-Nazi Life (2025)

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