Book Review - Foster - Claire Keegan
I watched the Oscar-nominated film An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) over the Christmas period and loved it. It didn't come as a surprise when I learned it was based on a book called Foster, written by Claire Keegan, whose Small Things Like These I had raved about back in 2021.
This was an earlier book, released back in 2010, that I had heard about but it had vanished into my TBR pile, as books sometimes do. I was happy to rescue it — I had enjoyed the film and wanted to linger in that world for a little longer.
The Kinsellas
Although it could be set during any period, the brief mention of the hunger strikes places it in 1981. The young protagonist, whose name we never learn, is sent to spend the summer with her mother's people on a farm in Wexford, close to Gorey. We get the feeling that she is part of a large family and somewhat neglected. As she travels with her father, we begin to sense her anxiety.
She stays with John and Edna Kinsella, a husband and wife who, as we begin to discover, are living with their own pain. But they make the girl welcome and she settles into the rhythms of life on the farm, helping in the kitchen and drawing water from the well.
Kindness
It's a book about the kindness of strangers, and about allowing others to grow when they are shown some love and attention. But the girl is as much a gift to the Kinsellas as they are to her. Keegan also gets the perspective of a child narrator exactly right — she's naive in some ways, but emotionally intelligent in others.
"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 this. It's a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be."
Dialogue
Keegan is so good at capturing natural speech patterns in the small amount of dialogue that occurs. The descriptions of the rural landscape are lovingly detailed. There is such a wonderful mastery and economy of language on display. At times it feels like there's not much happening, but there's so much taking place just below the surface.
"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."
The previous reference to the hunger strikes, and the quote above — which made me think of the saying in the North, "whatever you say, say nothing" — reminded me that an act of violence, or death, is never far away in this part of the world. There's a sense throughout the book of something that has happened, or might happen.
Novella
'My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me."
The film builds slightly upon the book, with the character of Mr Kinsella developed further, but it remains true to the essence of the story and is all the better for featuring some dialogue as Gaeilge. The last scene in both the film and book really got me, and I love the ambiguity of the final line.
It's hard to believe that this novella is just 89 pages long, given how much it contains — rich characterisation, a detailed and evocative setting, and layers of meaning that reward close reading. Keegan doesn't crowbar in backstory; she trusts the reader to fill in the gaps. I've read books four times the length that didn't have near as much depth. This is close to perfection.
89 pages
First Published February 10, 2010 by Faber & Faber
Foster by Claire Keegan — Summary
A young girl, unnamed throughout, is sent to spend the summer with the Kinsellas, relatives of her mother, on a farm in County Wexford. Set in 1981, the story unfolds quietly — the girl adjusting to a calmer, more loving household than the one she knows at home, and the Kinsellas finding unexpected comfort in her presence. There is a secret at the heart of the Kinsella household that slowly reveals itself, and the book builds to a final scene of real emotional power. At 89 pages it is technically a novella, but it contains more depth than most full-length novels.
In the video below, Claire Keegan finishes with a reading from ‘Foster.’ She also talks about the art of subtraction in her writing; “There is only so much you say as a writer and then you must rely quite heavily on the reader and their own consciousness and their own mysteries and their own private lives to explore the mystery of what is not said within the given story. It's one of the glorious reasons why we read.”