Foster

Irish author Claire Keegan’s novella Foster was released in the UK in September 2010, though initially it was a short story published by The New Yorker in February of the same year. While Foster was included in Ireland’s high school curriculum in 2015 and listed as one of the 21st century’s top 50 Irish novels by The Times, it was not published in the United States until 2022. This new release was prompted by the success of Keegan’s Booker Award-winning novel Small Things Like These (2021), which resembles Foster in its exploration of life in 1980s Ireland. Foster is a coming-of-age story set in rural Southeast Ireland and narrated by an unnamed girl who is sent to live with her mother’s relatives because her parents are struggling to afford all of their children. Though the narrator lives with the Kinsellas for only one summer, she is transformed by their generosity and care, even as she learns that she occupies a place once held by the couple’s dead son.

This text refers to the 2010 edition of Foster published by Faber and Faber.

Content Warning: This text includes references to death of a child, alcohol addiction, implied parental abuse and neglect, and separation of a foster child from their preferred family.

Plot Summary

Foster begins on a Sunday morning after mass as the narrator’s father drives her to her mother’s relatives in County Wexford, on the coast of Ireland. When the girl and her Da arrive at the Kinsellas’, John Kinsella (often referred to as just Kinsella) emerges to receive them and chats with Da as Edna Kinsella comes to greet the girl, whom she hasn’t seen since infancy.

In the kitchen, Edna asks about the girl’s very pregnant mother, Mary, referred to as Ma by the girl. It comes out that the narrator’s family hasn’t yet harvested their hay. When the men join for lunch, Da states that his daughter eats a lot but is a capable worker. Kinsella replies that she only needs to help his wife do house chores. Once full, Da is eager to leave and departs without saying goodbye to his child. The couple realize that the narrator is missing her belongings, though they seem confident that they will find clothes for her.

Chapter 2 continues with Edna giving the narrator a bath, a more luxurious and thorough one than she had experienced at home. The woman finds a pair of pants and a shirt in a chest of drawers for the child. Edna and the girl get a bucket and go to the well, where the woman tells the narrator to take a drink. She does, and the fresh water inspires her to wish that this were her actual home.

At bedtime, the girl requests that no curtain be hung around the bed because she fears the dark. Edna asks again about the hay, and the girl explains that her mother doesn’t have enough money to pay the harvester. Lying alone in bed, the girl notices that the room’s walls are covered in rainbow train wallpaper. Edna visits in the middle of the night, saying she’d never leave her own offspring in a strange home.

The narrator wakes up in Chapter 3 having urinated in her sleep. She assumes that the Kinsellas will reject her for this, but Edna pretends that the wet is due to the old mattress. They clean it, and the woman makes a hearty meal, over which Kinsella says that the news announced the death of another hunger striker that morning. The narrator helps Edna around the house. After tea, Kinsella sends the girl running to get the mail. He times her, makes jokes about the mail, and suggests that the girl should try to go even faster the next day. After dinner, Edna gives the narrator dry cereal, telling her that it will give her better skin. In the morning, the girl has not wet the bed, and Edna is pleased.

Chapter 4 depicts the trio falling into a routine. They eat together, Kinsella works on the farm, and Edna and the girl do domestic tasks. The narrator goes to bed after the evening news, though sometimes she hears visitors downstairs playing cards. One night, a person with a laugh like a donkey is present, and Edna brings the girl downstairs because the noise of merriment will keep her awake.

In the opening event of Chapter 5, Kinsella states that they need to get the girl new clothes before Mass the next day and are to go shopping in Gorey. Edna is upset by this and goes upstairs. Kinsella seems discomfited. He tells the narrator that she needs to wash before they go anywhere, and while she braces for his temper, he doesn’t move. When the girl tries to open the bathroom, it is locked. Edna emerges with signs of crying on her face but is positive once more.

In Gorey, Kinsella gives the girl a pound note to buy ice cream, and Edna takes her to get new clothes at a shop where the assistant assumes they are mother and daughter. Back outside, Edna runs into some acquaintances who are rudely fascinated by the narrator’s presence. The two run more errands, including to a stationery store and the candy store.

When they return, a woman is waiting to ask Kinsella to help dig a grave. That afternoon, Edna takes the narrator to the dead man’s wake on foot. The girl detects the coming of autumn and sees a cow that’s been separated from its herd. At the wake, the house is crowded and Kinsella is sitting near the open casket. He puts the girl on his lap until she gets restless. A woman named Mildred offers to take the girl to her place until the Kinsellas head home.

On the road, Mildred cross-examines the narrator about the Kinsellas, culminating in a revelation that until today, the girl has been wearing the couple’s dead son’s clothes. Mildred explains that the boy followed the Kinsellas’ dog into the farm’s slurry pit and drowned. The girl wonders how she missed all the clues about the son. Mildred’s cottage is a mess, and the girl is uncomfortable, but Kinsella soon arrives. He responds with satisfaction to Mildred’s observation that the girl is quiet. Out in the car, the narrator admits to both Kinsellas that Mildred told her the story of their deceased child.

Edna goes to bed while John takes the narrator on a walk on the beach. He holds the girl’s hand, something that her father had never done. The pair talk, and Kinsella impresses upon the narrator that silence is often the best course of action. Across the sea, two faraway lights become three, and Kinsella embraces his foster daughter.

One day, when Kinsella sends the girl running to get the mail, it contains a letter from her mother. He gives it to Edna, who reads it twice and announces that Mary gave birth to a son and wants her daughter back. The narrator is near tears, and Kinsella leaves the room. Edna tries to soothe the girl by having her choose a sweater pattern that she will knit for her.

In Chapter 7, the girl decides that if she has to go home, then she doesn’t want to linger, and she asks Kinsella to take her back that evening. He agrees but says that he has to milk the cows first. Edna helps her pack a bag, including books that John taught the girl to read. A neighbor arrives in need of Kinsella’s help with a calf’s birth, so Edna takes over the milking. Left by herself, the girl goes to the well to get water for her foster parents as a final act. She cannot handle the weight of the full bucket and falls into the well, seeing the image of a hand like hers tugging her in.

The final chapter sees the narrator brought back home by the Kinsellas, though only after several days of lying sick in bed after her dunk in the well. They return to the girl’s parents on a Sunday, and the gate to the driveway is closed, so Kinsella gets out to open it. Once inside a house that appears slovenly to the narrator, the girl’s mother notices the changes in her daughter. Da arrives and inquires whether his child behaved herself. Kinsella assures him that she did, but when the narrator sneezes, Da exclaims that she caught a cold because she was disobedient. The Kinsellas begin leaving. When the girl hears the car stop at the gate, she sprints to the end of the lane as she did for the mail, right into Kinsella’s arms. She hears Edna weeping in the car and sees her father approaching over Kinsella’s shoulder. The narrator warns Kinsella and calls him “Daddy” for the first time.