Jessamyn Hope’s debut novel opens with Adam, a 26-year-old drug-addicted burnout, fleeing from New York City to Israel. Adam’s caretaker and closest companion, his grandfather, has recently died. During the airplane ride, Adam broods on whether American authorities are following him. Experiencing withdrawals and toting an odd assortment of belongings, including an elaborate gold brooch, he volunteers to work on a kibbutz. He’s searching for someone. The circumstances of his grandfather’s death, the significance of the brooch, and the identity of whom Adam is searching for drive the thoughtfully plotted Safekeeping.

Falco begins this novel by introducing us, one by one, to the characters: Avery, a rebellious art student at Penn State, Lindsey and Hank, Avery’s aunt and uncle, and Kate, Avery’s widowed mother who is having an affair with Hank, her brother-in-law. The main story involves Avery and Grant, a thirty-something former performance artist from New York she meets at a campus party. Avery runs away to New York with the mysterious Grant after knowing him for less than 24 hours. In New York, Avery is thrown into the heart of the avant-garde art scene; Grant’s friends include a famous artist, a successful TV writer and a restaurateur. Grant himself had early success as a writer, but after he killed a man in self-defense while trucking stolen goods across state lines for his shady uncle Billy, he stopped writing. Now Grant’s only source of income is further work for Billy, who keeps him on the fringes of his criminal enterprises out of respect for his brother, Grant’s father.