Ellen Foster | 
|  | | | Title: | Ellen Foster | | Author: | Kaye Gibbons | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 01 May, 1990 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0375703055 / 9780375703058 | | List Price: | $11.95 | | You Save: | $2.39 | | Amazon Price: | $9.56 | |
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Product Description
"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."
Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, October 1997: Kaye Gibbons is a writer who brings a short story sensibility to her novels. Rather than take advantage of the novel's longer form to paint her visions in broad, sweeping strokes, Gibbons prefers to concentrate on just one corner of the canvas and only a few colors to produce her small masterpieces. In Gibbons's case, her canvas is the American South and her colors are all the shades of gray. In Ellen Foster, the title character is an 11-year-old orphan who refers to herself as "old Ellen," an appellation that is disturbingly apt. Ellen is an old woman in a child's body; her frail, unhappy mother dies, her abusive father alternately neglects her and makes advances on her, and she is shuttled from one uncaring relative's home to another before she finally takes matters into her own hands and finds herself a place to belong. There is something almost Dickensian about Ellen's tribulations; like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield or a host of other literary child heroes, Ellen is at the mercy of predatory adults, with only her own wit and courage--and the occasional kindness of others--to help her through. That she does, in fact, survive her childhood and even rise above it is the book's bittersweet victory.
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Customer Reviews:
• A Study Of A Resilient Child 24 April, 2008
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AGRDA6NT3VNDW
• Shockingly Honest Voice . . . 24 July, 2008
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1129LM24YWSZV
• Sad But Humorous At The Same Time 04 November, 2008
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2FHD8ZZFRIRZ3
• Inspirational Or Just Cliched? 05 January, 2009
This book was recommended to me to read in preperation for teaching in a classroom setting. Despite my earlier misgivings with the book's Oprah Book List stamp on the cover I attempted to maintain an open mind towards the novel as a whole. Despite this honest mission I was still sorely disappointed with not only the story but also the author's style.
The literary style itself was meant to mimic the storytelling of a small child through the sparse detail and straight-forward language but the inclusion of an unreliable timeline of events through the protagonist's constant bouncing around in her story makes an otherwise easy ready almost difficult if not just plain confusing. This book almost requires that you reread the first part of the book once you are halfway through the novel in order to even understand what the author is implying with the introduction of Ellen's "new mama" early in the book. While rereading can often lead to better understanding of any text, for young readers this can be a daunting and often unrewarding task given the amount of effort it takes to decode Gibbon's attempt at a child's storytelling none the less for anyone to put forth the effort reading beyond the confusing passages that lack the proper context clues until much later in the book.
With literary style aside, the story itself becomes an almost daunting if not depressing trek as we the reader follow the plucky heroine as she overcomes obstacles in her search for a loving home. While Ellen, the main character, faces a number of difficult issues such as an abusive home life and a witness to her mother's suicide, there is something strangely cold and unfeeling about the child in how she appoaches each obstacle between her and her final goal through a lack of emotional connection with almost anyone or anything save what conveniences her at the time. While this may give the main character an almost invincible if not indominatable spirit in the eyes of younger readers, older readers may find the child's estrangement of her emotions unnatural if not wholly disturbing given the number of events Ellen has endured in the course of her journey.
Ellen's story reaches a conclusion with our protagonist realizing some small epiphany when she is with her childhood African American friend named Starletta years later after the long journey. Ellen's concludes that she felt ashamed of herself for how she viewed Starletta and her family early in the novel and that only now does Ellen view herself on equal par with her African American friend after surviving her bouts of child abuse and neglect. The epiphany itself I found insincere and altogether cliche in so many ways that makes this supposedly "inspirational" story fall short of my expectations of the author by her weak attempts to tie in stereotyped racial insecurities of the deep south with Ellen's understanding of her situation. This life lesson I view as not only trite in its execution but also asinine in how such a conclusion could even be made based on how little Ellen even reflects on the condition of her friend based on race when she seems more concerned with stashing money away or criticizing people on their social and economic inadequacies.
In short, I cannot recommend this novel in good judgement, however, if you are still inclined to read it then it is best to have little if any expectations at all on the novel if you are even able to pull through its pages.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1V2EJPUEV34JG
• Invigorating And True To Life 11 December, 2008
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).
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1RWVIS9XCDFI
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