“All good stories are told with varying degrees of reluctance.” (Claire Keegan)

/ madamebibilophile

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m disappointed not to be doing my novella a day in May project this year, but for my sanity something had to give! Simon is undertaking a book a day for the month which I’m sure will give me many ideas for next year 😊

I still plan to focus on novellas this month though, and last year when I read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a few people mentioned that I read needed to read Foster. How right they were, it’s an extraordinary novella.

Apparently it started life as a New Yorker short story (it has two copyright dates) and although I haven’t read that version, as a novella I would say it is completely realised in just 88 pages.

A young girl is taken to the west of Ireland to live with the Kinsellas, her aunt and uncle, as her mother is heavily pregnant and struggling with the number of children she has to care for.  Her father gambles away the family heifer and there isn’t enough food to go round, or time for adequate physical or emotional care.

At the place where she is to spend the summer, chores are achieved daily on the farm and within the home. There is enough food and enough care.

“Her hands are like my mother’s hands but there is something else in them too, something I had never felt before and have no name for. I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.”

Although the time is never specified, it seems to be around the 1970s/early 1980s as there is a discussion of hunger strikers. The narrator is nameless and we’re not sure of her age, but I would say somewhere around nine to eleven years old.

“I am in a spot where I can neither be what I always am nor turn into what I could be.”

Keegan trusts the reader not to need everything spelled out. We get a sense of the wider family dynamics and the feelings of various family members without them being explicitly stated. The slowly building bonds of trust and affection between the young narrator and the Kinsellas are so delicately evoked and tenderly realised.

A stunning scene sees the narrator and Mr Kinsella walking along the beach. When they turn around to walk back, he can only see her footprints

“’You must have carried me there.’

[..]

We stand then, to pause and look back out at the water.

‘See, there’s three lights now where there was only two before.’

I look out across the sea. There, the two lights are blinking as before, but with another, steady light, shining in between.

‘Can you see it?’ he says.

‘I can,’ I say. ‘It’s there.’

 And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his own.”

There is also the gradual understanding by the narrator that a life is possible, and exists, beyond that which she has always known.

“But this is a different type of house. Here there is room, and time to think. There may even be money to spare.”

Throughout, there is an awareness that this is a temporary time, with a defined end date. The situation cannot endure and the narrator and the Kinsellas will have to part.

Foster is a stunning novella. A deeply moving and perfectly crafted gem, complete in itself, down to the final devastating line.

I’ve not seen the film adaptation of Foster, but it looks faithful, and beautifully shot:

22 thoughts on ““All good stories are told with varying degrees of reluctance.” (Claire Keegan)”

  2. I’m glad you decided to read for your sanity as I get to read your lovely review! I have yet to read any Forster, but I liked your quotes.

    I really enjoyed my first ‘novella a day’ last May and discovered lots of new books I wanted to read. Moreover, sometimes a short book is needed to hit the spot. I hope you manage to perhaps have more reading time than you think this month.

    (BTW I’ve nearly finished The Rising Tide. I think it is marvellous: I love the gothic atmosphere, evocative descriptions of nature and the houses, and the characters are wonderful. I spied Time after Time and Good Behaviour on my local library shelf yesterday so greedily borrowed those to hopefully read soon too!).

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    • Thank you so much! I’m definitely hoping for more reading time than anticipated – fingers crossed….

      I’m so pleased you are enjoying The Rising Tide, as you know, I loved it. Time After Time and Good Behaviour have some gloriously monstrous creations within them – I hope you enjoy them!

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  5. Your mention of hands reminds me of a photo exhibition I saw once, of women’s hands. Sometimes there was a prop , like a sewing machine or a trowel, but mostly they just showed the transition from flawless baby skin to the papery skin of very old age… hands with a lifetime of work behind them. 

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    • Absolutely Mallika, it’s beautifully done. I’m not sure how much difference there is between the two versions – maybe the novella is slightly longer? But I’m sure essentially they’re the same story, as she kept the title.

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  9. I’m interested that you say “Keegan trusts the reader not to need everything spelled out.” This is my issue with her writing. Maybe it’s that she’s trying to raise awareness of things that I feel like I’m already aware of and would like more description of, to make the fictional picture she’s presenting more particular?

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  11. OH! I didn’t realise The Quiet Girl was based on this novel, which has been on my TBR. Just last week, I pressed play on the film and now I’m so glad that something completely interrupted that process before it had even properly started (can’t even recall what it was, but no movie was watched last week after all) so that I can be sure to read the book first!

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