Version 1.0.0
Title: Foster
Author: Claire Keegan
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571379149
Pages: 90
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5
Claire Keegan writes with a sense of ease, that a reader can make out from the first sentence. There is no sense of urgency or hurry to her craft. She gives it time, gives time to words, and to the sentences to breathe. Her characters linger, even loiter with their thoughts – consequential or not, doesn’t matter – they ponder nonetheless. Their emotions are not spelled out every single time.
At one point, Mr. Kinsella tells the child in the book, ‘You don’t ever have to say anything,’ he says. ‘Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.’ And this to me made so much sense. Keegan writes with a self-confidence that is unassuming and rare, just like two of my other favourite writers, Anita Desai and Ann Patchett.
What is Foster about?
Well, it is about what the title says, a young girl comes to live with the Kinsellas, during a hot Irish summer, and how her life changes, as she begins to understand and learn a new way of living, filled with emotions, the daily routine, and small acts of kindness. It is a book about family, and what we perhaps do not understand, till we do. In this short novelette of 90 pages, Keegan gives us the world of a child, and two adults trying to cope with living, till they find comfort in each other.
Foster is a book I will not stop recommending. Read it for its beauty, its slowness, its tenderness, and above all its eye for empathy and kindness in the world. Read it for its grace in the prose, and for all the silences it holds.
