Foster

After reading two other books by Claire Keegan over the past few weeks, I decided first, that I love this author and second, that I would take a little break because not all of her works were available at my public libraries or on Hoopla. I especially could not find this book, Foster, which is enjoying a new publication, so of course I became obsessed looking for it. And then, what do you know? The book showed up on NetGalley. No sooner had I requested it when I received an email from Grove Press offering me a copy for my honest review (talk about timing). So, first of all, my honest review. I loved the book and I love this author (one might have guessed since this was the THIRD book I read by her in as many weeks).

A young girl’s show more father drives her to the Kinsella farm in another town, where Mr. and Mrs. Kinsella have agreed to look after her for the summer until her pregnant mother gives birth to sibling #? (everyone has lost count). The young girl leaves the reader to believe that her mother would be happy for her to stay indefinitely, and she is clearly troubled by this. Her fear that she is unloved is validated by the fact that her mother is not affectionate by nature and rarely hugs or nurtures her other than the odd query whether she would like another pancake on a morning.

Mr. and Mrs. Kinsella take the time to parent her, include her almost completely in the family circle of friends, teaching and nurturing her in family chores, personal hygiene, values, and instructing her in the proper way to respond and converse, plying her with treats and affection that she has never experienced. The Young Girl clearly loved the routine, order and stability, and threw herself into the role with enthusiasm.

Watching the child’s emotional growth and development in just those few months where the Kinsella’s were devoted solely to her was captivating. She was so warmly treated that she dared to indulge herself in the fantasy of staying on and continuing in the role of “only” child in the Kinsella household.

We were offered a glimpse of the close-knit farming community where neighbors. including the Kinsella’s, reached out to help one-another….and also to gossip about one another.

It was interesting to watch how the child’s loyalties are naturally bestowed, on her family and how those loyalties manifested also in defense of the Kinsellas, who she came to love and view as surrogate parents.

So, How do I Love Thee Claire Keegan?

I love thee because your prose is beautiful
I love thee because the reactions of your characters are pitch perfect
I love thee because your stories are original, unsettling, and unexpected
I love thee because you are not sappy and make me cry, although your characters or the circumstances they find themselves in are often tragic
I love thee because you take me to places and times I have never visited (including emotionally and intellectually)
I love thee because you say what you have to say in 200+ pages or less (God Bless You. My patience and attention spans just that far)
I love thee for dozens more reasons, but I have to get dinner ready or 16 people will go hungry tonight…

Thank thee NetGalley and Grove Press for sharing this amazing book with me. I loved it. show less

A girl is taken to stay with strangers while her mother has a baby. The Kinsellas are an entirely different type of family from her own, and at first the differences are distressing. Soon, however, she learns to accept the care that they pour into her, the orderly existence that she falls into. Unfortunately, good things don't last forever...

This novella is superbly well-written, with a strong sense of place, and a rare depth of emotion for a work so short. I only wish it had been longer! I'll definitely read more by this author.

This is an exquisite little thing. Keegan writes very tightly crafted novellas, there's not a word wasted here and they are all doing so much. We start with a young girl being taken, by her father, to stay with her aunt in the country. We find out quite a lot about the girl's home life through the interactions with the aunt & uncle. The picture we build up is of a struggling family, the hay not yet gathered in, no money to pay the man, too many children and one more on the way, a feckless father and too little love to go around. With the Kinsellas, she is clothed, cared for, cherished even, despite not having met them since she was a baby.
In this idyll there comes a sting, we know that, at some point, she will have to go home. And so show more there comes a one-two punch to the gut in that we learn of the Kinsella's past and they lose this girl back to her family. Would she be better off with the Kinsellas? yes, would they be better off with her there, to lighten the load and give them a future that, it feels, they don't believe they deserve? Yes. Is that going to happen? Probably not.
Thus is just so beautifully done, the enveloping, then the gut punches one after the other. The Kinsellas are not classically heroic figures, but that is what they are, in their own small way. I think this is Keegan's skill, making heroes of the everyday. Sometimes remaining human is the biggest feat of all. show less

A work of art

Rural Ireland. A little girl comes to stay with distant relatives for some weeks, because her mother is pregnant again and will give birth soon.

The writing is evocative, emotional, full of grace. It feels like I have read more than a 100 pages, and have lived with these families for many days. There are moments when things are unsaid, yet everything is clear. There is poignancy in every word, every gesture. What is more heartbreaking than an unloved child discovering what love is, knowing it is not theirs to keep?

The ending took my breath away.

”Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won’t have to feel show more this.” show less

What you have here is a perfectly shaped and written novella around the theme of loss and renewal -- how intertwined the two are such that you cannot have one without the other. The setting is (more or less contemporary) rural Wexford in the south of Ireland, two families, two sisters married to very different men and in very different circumstances. In one family an irresponsible father and overwhelmed mother, in the other two caring, good people, who have no child and I can't say more without spoiling -- the reader will get the situation long before the first person narrator does; the oldest child of the first family, who is sent to the second while the mother has what is at least her sixth and maybe seventh child. The couple with no show more child embrace the girl (who is ten? 11? 12? on the edge of puberty but not quite there) and care for her in a way she has never experienced and blossoms under. A sub-theme then, you could say, is that even from as short an experience as this one was (a few months of summer) the girl's life will be changed forever as she will know that other ways of being exist outside of the one she took for granted in her own birth family. It seems likely she will revisit her uncle and aunt frequently and will regard them as her 'true' parents. The writing--the challenge of a first person child narrator--Keegan succeeds while sacrificing nothing of description and development. ****1/2

An aside: The copy I picked up in a used book store in Ennis last April was scribbled in (shoulda looked more carefully) by a young lass who dotted her i's with round circles, clearly writing down what the teacher said as they went through. (Is there a boy alive who has ever done that?) At first I was annoyed but then I decided it was a propos, her own comments, parroting the teacher were insightful and yet the spelling! Some words were clearly not any she was familiar with. show less

Five stars for the writing.
However ~ the overlying, dark tone of family dysfunction and implied mistreatment of the young girl made this short story an emotional roller coaster. Keegan is a hugely powerful writer, able to evoke an atmospheric narrative in succinct descriptions. My rating reflects amongst other considerations: did I enjoy the theme and would I read it again?

Foster opens with a young girl being taken by her father to stay with another family, the Kinsellas. Seen entirely through the child’s eyes, readers are given very few details. Why is this happening? Is this a visit, or something more permanent? Are these people relatives, friends, or complete strangers? The child has no answers, but seems to accept the arrangement. Details are dropped like a trail of breadcrumbs, and as the picture comes into focus, so does the emotional impact on both the child and the Kinsellas.

I could give examples to illustrate my point, but to say any more would spoil the reading experience. Keegan has a gift for telling a complete and nuanced story in very few words. While this novella could be read in an show more afternoon, it is worth taking at a slower pace to allow the sublime narrative to flow like a meandering stream. show less