by Kaye Gibbons
"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 Academ...
Gibbons' style reminds me of Cormac McCarthy. For me, that's no compliment. There are no quotation marks around the dialogue, making it harder to keep track of, and almost no commas as far as the eye can see. Gibbons at least could claim a rationale for what in McCarthy I can only see as an affectat...
Ellen Foster is written from the POV of an 11 year old girl who daydreams about killing her alcoholic, abusive father. Left mostly on her own after her mother kills herself, she describes her life with no self pity and copes with managing the household bills and getting food for herself as if it wer...
Loved!
Another short one, it seems like a year for that. 'Ellen Foster' is written in one of the most convincing young voices I've come across, and thank God early on you know there's a happy ending, because Ellen's life is rough. The novel goes back and forth between Ellen's present and the past two years...
3 1/2 starsInteresting style of telling, in the words of eleven-year-old Ellen. Her mother dies and her father is an unfit parent. She's knocked around from pillar to post until she finally finds a place where she is wanted and can enjoy being a kid.
I can no longer stomach books about children who are neglected or abused. Even if the writing is good. Too close to home.
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