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Book Reviewed by:
Rebecca Foster
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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. 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.
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. A story of astonishing emotional depth, Foster showcases Claire Keegan's great talent and secures her reputation as one of our most important storytellers.
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Coming in at under 130 pages, Foster bears all the hallmarks of a book several times its length: a convincing and original voice, rich character development, an evocative setting, psychological depth, conflict and sensitive treatment of difficult themes like poverty and neglect. In this exquisite novella, Keegan unfolds a cautionary tale of endangered childhood, also hinting at the enduring difference a little compassion can make...continued
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Hilary Mantel
Foster confirms Claire Keegan's talent. She creates luminous effects with spare material, so every line seems to be a lesson in the perfect deployment of both style and emotion. Richard Ford
Foster puts on display an imposing array of formal beauties at the service of a deep and profound talent…She brings a thrilling synesthetic instinct for the unexpected right word, and exhibits patient attention to life's vast consequence and finality…a high-wire act of uncommon narrative virtuosity.
Claire Keegan is a writer’s writer — lauded by the likes of William Trevor, who chose her first short story collection, Antarctica (1999), for the William Trevor Prize; Hilary Mantel, who gave her second short story collection, Walk the Blue Fields (2007), the Edge Hill Short Story Prize; and Richard Ford, who awarded Foster the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award in 2009. Now, nearly 25 years into her career, her work is also finding the popular audience that it deserves. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize. It also won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for tackling the open secret of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene Laundries, where, even as late as 1985, when Keegan...
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