Ellen Foster | Kaye Gibbons | Invigorating and True to Life

Ellen Foster | Kaye Gibbons | A wonderful narrator

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Ellen Foster

	Ellen Foster Kaye Gibbons Vintage, 1990 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 307 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kay Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise, funny, affectionate, and true, Ellen Foster is, as Walker Percy called it, "The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heartwrenching novel. . . . [Ellen Foster] is as much a part of the backwoods South as a Faulkner character?and a good deal more endearing."

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Invigorating and True to Life

Ellen Foster is a wonderful story that's true to life. Taking place in the south circa the sixties, I think, and centering around a girl whose relatives are all either dead or crazy, Kaye Gibbons makes the reader feel like he or she is experiencing life with Ellen. The lack of quote marks demonstrates the low-class Southern life of the area. Recommended for adopted kids, anyone who's had problems with family, and anyone who has read and enjoyed Gibbon's other books (A Cure for Dreams, Charms for a Good Life).

A wonderful narrator

I found this book to be absolutely stunning, primarily because of the point of view! Ellen is the narrator, and we so clearly see the world, people, and events around her through her ten-year-old eyes--and they are very special eyes! The child has a way of interpreting events that helps her survive a childhood that may have defeated many more ordinary girls.
She is unforgettable.

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A study of a resilient child

You will fall in love with the title character of Kaye Gibbons's Ellen Foster. Throughout the novel, Ellen's most dominant character trait is self-preservation. From the first page to the last, she reveals and demonstrates the backbone and resilience necessary for a child thrown into challenging circumstances.

Gibbons structures the novella around a series of temporal shifts between the present situation of the narrator (the now of the story) and the past situation of the character (the then of the story). The story, in effect, becomes a gradual diminishing of the distance between these two temporal settings.

As the story of Ellen Foster's difficult childhood and her remarkable resilience is parceled out to the reader through fifteen chapters, another story--a story about a child's understanding of race and decency--is told as well.

Like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Ellen Foster is a story for people of all ages.

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Shockingly honest voice . . .

Ellen Foster is a slim volume, Gibbon's first novel. It's told from the searingly honest perspective of eleven-year-old Ellen, whose mother passes away. After her mother's death, Ellen manages to escape her abusive, alcoholic father. She moves in with a controlling, vindictive grandmother. After the grandmother, too, dies (by which time her father is also deceased), Ellen stays for a short time with her aunt (also a difficult situation) before joining a foster family that finally provides her with a real home.

Ellen is a fascinating character. Her voice is simple, but clearly intelligent and bent on self-preservation. Her eventual epiphany and acceptance of her "colored friend" Starletta is also a strong theme. The book reads quickly, and though Ellen endures considerable hardship, she does not wallow in self-pity. I recommend this novel.

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Sad but humorous at the same time

A short, intense novel about 11 year old Ellen Foster (or that is what she calls herself) growing up in a severely dysfunctional family in Southern USA. Her poor mother dies in the beginning of the story and leaves Ellen with her mean, drunk and violent father. She also stays for a while with her aunt and cousin and finally her grandmother takes her in. But that is not necessarily a good thing, because grandma is one mean woman and there is no love lost between her and Ellen. When the grandmother dies, Ellen goes to live with a foster-family, which is the first time in her life she feels some love, but this also ends and she goes to a new foster-home, which is where she is as she is telling her story. She is happy there, at last, but what will the future hold for her? The above description may sound sentimental and too much, and even though the story is told with the voice of a child, the whole story is also so ironic and filled with dark humour. And that is what makes it bearable. Otherwise Ellen's story would simply have been unbearable- Ellen's only friend is a black girl, for whom Ellen will do anything, but in Southern USA some years back that wasn't always the easiest thing. I was caught up in this book and could easily see all the humour, but it also made me a bit sad. Its a dark story for sure. Makes the reader think of the evil of mankind.

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