‘ “I try to remember another time when I felt like this and am sad because I can’t remember a time, and happy, too, because I cannot.’įoster is a simple enough story, a young girl is sent to live with distant relatives for a summer while her mother is pregnant with yet another child and the short time together builds a deep emotional resonance in the lives of the girl and the Kinsellas who take her in. Thriving through a story taking place beyond the grasp of the pre-teen girl who narrates the story, Foster is a tiny, bittersweet masterpiece that captures the aches and living and comforts of love all set against a lush Irish landscape. I found Foster to be even tighter and more succinct, which was to its benefit though Small Things was fantastic itself, and this novella manages to say so much in all the unsaid moments. Originally published in 2010 in Ireland where it garnered awards and school curriculum reading, Foster has finally arrived on US shelves, no doubt aided by the success of her recent novella, Small Things Like These, which was nominated for the Booker Prize this year, and the film adaptation of this book. Claire Keegan’s Foster is such a book, being taut and economical in Keegan’s pitch perfect prose but delivering an emotional resonance far surpassing its brief 80pgs.

In this case, you unpack a sucker punch of feelings straight to the heart and we are all better for it. I love when a novel is deceptively simplistic, seeming sparse on the surface but revealing intricacies of emotion and meaning the more you unpack each scene. ‘ I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.’ A story of astonishing emotional depth, Foster showcases Claire Keegan’s great talent and secures her reputation as one of our most important storytellers. Winner of the prestigious Davy Byrnes Award and published in an abridged version in the New Yorker, this internationally bestselling contemporary classic is now available for the first time in the US in a full, standalone edition. 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. In the Kinsellas’ house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. 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.

An international bestseller and one of The Times’ “Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century,” Claire Keegan’s piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US It is a hot summer in rural Ireland.

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