Foster - Claire Keegan

AUTHOR: Claire Keegan

GENRE: Drama, Irish Fiction.

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: Touching and subtle. Beautiful writing, heartfelt emotions, realistic characters. You’ll want more at the end. But you’ll also realize that you have acquired far more than the 90-odd pages contain.

Story Synopsis:

The unnamed first-person protagonist, a child of unspecified age, has been sent by her parents to live with a foster family on a rural Irish farm while her mother readies herself to give birth to yet another child. She doesn’t know the people she is to stay with, and she doesn’t know when she is to return home. What she doesn’t know is that life is going to bloom for her in this foster home. But all good things come to an end, right? Or don’t they?

I loved the three main characters: the child and the two foster parents. Keegan sketches their personalities in a striking way without going into details. It is only with every subsequent scene that you begin to put a picture of what might be the backstory of the characters.

I’ve read three Claire Keegan works so far, and each time, I’ve read the respective story twice. The first time the regular way, and the second time to see what more clues I might have missed. Her writing is very intelligent, and she also respects her readers’ intelligence by not spoon-feeding them every single detail. Nor does she shove the emotions into your face but causes you to feel them through simple scenes and hidden cues. I do appreciate this trait of hers, though it makes me work that much harder to glean the best of her writing as she leaves a lot unsaid. In this story though, I wish she had revealed at least a few more details. The age of the protagonist, for one. While we can gauge that the child could be anywhere between 6-10 years old, but I like knowing the age of child characters so that I can picture them and their behaviour better.

Names in all their forms have a significant role in the delivery of this novella, which is quite ironic as our narrator remains anonymous throughout the story. She is referred to variously as ‘girl’ or ‘petal’ or any other term, which reveals how the speaker views her. What is also interesting is her own approach to names. Her temporary foster mom, for instance, is always “the woman” in her thoughts while the foster dad is mostly “Kinsella”. There is also a significant moment connected to names at the very end, which is the most poignant moment of the story.

The writing is, as always, poetic without being over the top. Keegan maintains in her scenes the perfect balance between description and conversation, never allowing one to overpower the other. She is also true to the national identity of the characters, and retains the Irish lilt in their lines. The child’s emotions of awe and worry and fear and comfort come out well through the first person rendition. The story is medium-paced, and it would be better if you read it slower to get the exact sense of what’s happening. Keegan’s books are never to be skip-read.

The bittersweet ending left my heart longing for more. Though I know it was the only possible ending for this story, one can still wish that fiction worked better than reality and gave the girl an ending she deserved instead of an ending she was destined to have.

All in all, this isn’t a story that will leave you easily. It isn’t perfect, but it is striking in its writing and memorable in its characters. Definitely worth a read.

My thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the DRC of “Foster”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

‘Foster’ was an international bestseller on its release in 2010, and one of The Times’ “Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century.” A variant of this story was published on the New Yorker site. This is the revised and expanded edition.