Parker’s Pages: The Scent Keeper

I desperately needed an escape this month and happily uncovered one of the most delightful fantasy novels I’ve ever read while scouring the local bookstore. The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister creates a cozy atmosphere right off the cuff, weaving lyrical writing with gloriously sensual descriptions of scents to create a reading experience that feels like no other. I have never had a novel tug at my sense of smell quite like this one; it brings to mind memories old and new, just as it does for the main character of the novel, Emmeline.

Emmeline is a young girl who lives with her father on a deserted island where they collect and categorize smells. There is something undeniably magic and fantastical about this collection, but because the novel is through Emmeline’s eyes, there is also something familiar and comfortable about these slips of scent papers, sealed in their little bottles that keep their scents fresh.

Emmeline’s point of view immediately pulls you in: her childish understanding of the goings-on of the island, of her father, of the mysterious machine that makes the smells. I was hooked in by her darling narration and found myself devouring chapters like I was starving for them. We follow Emmeline as she discovers more and more about the paper slips and about her world, while Bauermeister balances the childlike wonder of a young Emmeline.

“My father had always told me that my birthday was the first day of spring. Not a specific day of the year, but the feeling—an undercurrent of warmth waking up the earth. The scent of violets. Green in the air, he called it.” (pg. 25)

The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

The Evergreen Echo

I hope you will indulge if the English major within me takes the wheel here, but what a beautiful passage this one is—doing so much work in just a few short statements. Let’s break this down. At this point in the novel, we already know that Emmeline adores and idolizes her father; he’s the one who makes the scents, who categorizes and collects them, and who directs her. As she says at the very start of the novel, “My father was my world, in a way so literal it can still grab my thoughts, pick them up, and toss them around like driftwood in a storm” (pg. 5). That Emmeline starts by saying that her birthday is decided first by her father, and then by the change in season is significant. Her birthday is not tied to a day, but rather to her father and his view of the world.

Then the passage moves us into a beautiful sensory description that Bauermeister is so skilled at, describing the Spring as a feeling, a s

ensation. “An undercurrent of warmth”— ‘undercurrent’ working here as a current of wind and water, both elements that we’ve heard about frequently at this point. We can imagine both warmth in the air and in the coming tide. And of course, in a book about scents we cannot forget smell—violets. But I like that it’s short and simple here, so we can focus on the amorphous feeling of Spring rather than the expected scent.

Then we move into the final sentence. “Green in the air, he called it.” I love that we start and end this section with Emmeline’s father and his viewpoint. Emmeline says it’s green because her father does. I also like that ‘green’ is a symbol and a literal adjective. Spring brings green literally, in the forms of new plants and green buds. But it also brings green symbolically—growth, new experiences, change, perhaps a twinge of envy for the summer yet to come.

I will release you from the shackles of my Bachelor’s in English now, but I strongly urge you to give this book a read, whether you’re a reader looking for a new world to lose yourself in or a writer looking to dissect some excellent passages. I am also eager to dive into Bauermeister’s other works, including the The School of Essential Ingredients and her memoir, House Lessons. If you’re looking for a sensational (get it, like ‘sense’ of smell) read, this is the one for you.