Foster by Claire Keegan

 

Summary (from the publisher): It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas’ house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end.

Review: A young girl is part of a large Irish family that is going through a financial rough patch and expecting yet another baby. Her father has driven her to the coast and plans to drop her off with distant relatives to stay for an unspecified length of time. While the Kinsellas' house feels foreign and odd at first, slowly she begins to flourish under the close care and affection of the couples' home, vastly unlikely the cold household of her own parents, whose attention is divided between two many young children. Yet the summer must soon come to an end. 

This was a beautifully spare novel that holds great emotional complexity beneath its simple language. The narrator, being a young girl, sees the world simply and without full understanding. She doesn't question her father's decision to leave her with near strangers or to wonder why the couple are both so sad or who all the clothes and toys belong to in the room in which she is housed. She is an innocent, swept up in a larger story, of which she has no say and no control. It's very clear that the unnamed narrator is unused to creature comforts like warm baths and plentiful food and seems to soak up all of the simple care from the Kinsellas. 

This was a very brief book but yet in its short number of pages, it really drew me in, and the final scene is achingly sad. Keegan is a master of showing versus telling and the gaps in the reader's knowledge and understanding actually add to the depth and complexity of this story, as the reader knows just as little as the child knows about the adults around her, which isn't much. In the end, our narrator feels great grief and conflicting loyalties and it was hard to imagine her returning to a life of hardship and little physical affection. I found this to be a striking novel with an amazing emotional depth. 

Stars: 4