Asynchronous Book Club: The Keeper

This fall, Kelcey Ervick’s new book The Keeper: Soccer, Me, and the Law that Changed Women’s Lives has just hit the shelves, so we’re diving into another asynchronous book club to celebrate. In The Keeper, Ervick discusses her time on the soccer field as a young woman and the transformative effect of Title IX on her life and the lives of women across the country. In The Keeper, the right to play is also about the right to be a part of a community. 

Here are some questions for our asynchronous book club:

1. This book covers a lot of subjects: Kelcey’s relationship to soccer, her competing identities, the history of women’s soccer, Title IX, literary figures, and more. How does Ervick weave together all these threads into a cohesive story?

2. How does the story of the Dick Kerr ladies parallel to more contemporary US women’s soccer?

3. Ervick uses different materials and stylistic choices to tell her story. How does the art influence how you interpret the passages of research and memoir? 

4. What is the effect of Ervick’s use of pop culture throughout? What items might be referenced on your personal timeline if you were using popular culture to mark key moments?

5. What kinds of “keepers” are referenced throughout the book? What “keepers” might you add to the list?

6. Ervick discusses the pull of different identities throughout The Keeper. Since childhood, she details her struggle to decide where to put her energies: artist or policeman, soccer player or model? How does she finally find a way to synthesize her identities? What identities have competed for your attention during your lifetime?

Drawing activity: Near the end of The Keeper, Ervick mentions the two statues dedicated to women soccer players that were erected in 2019. If you were tasked with creating a statue to honor something overlooked by society, what might you create?

Feel free to add your questions in the comments section below, or let us know how your own books discussions go!