Ellen Foster

Kaye Gibbons, “Ellen Foster,” Vintage books Paperback edition, C1987, 126 pp.

A book assigned from my book club.  Kind of liked it.  It got my wife’s highest rating—i.e. she read the whole thing and did not fall asleep.  We also use this rating system for movies.

Ellen Foster is based on author Kaye Gibbons's own childhood experiences whose mother committed suicide by overdosing on medication.  Also autobiographical is Gibbons’ portrayal of Ellen's father, who eventually drinks himself to death, as Gibbons’ own alcoholic father did. In Ellen Foster, Gibbons fictionalizes her true-life search for a loving home through Ellen who finds such a home with a foster mother after experiencing unbelievable treatment by her relatives, particularly her grandmother whom she calls ‘mama’s mama’.  Ellen’s evolving relationship with Starletta, a black girl, shows Ellen’s growing maturity—Starletta is a friend Ellen keeps as she moves from place to place with her worldly goods in a box.

Today there is much talk about helicopter parenting as well as the coddling of the American mind.  This book is an antidote--set in the mid to late 1970s about tough-love without the love; also, a book without many commas which I started to notice when I got to page 19.  You’ve got to love the first sentence: “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.”  I haven’t read such a compelling introduction since: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents ...” in Catcher In The Rye,” and don’t get me started on “Call me Ishmael.”

My Notes:

Pg. 10: “I could lay here and read all night.  I am not able to fall asleep without reading.  You have that time when your brain has nothing constructive to do so it rambles.  I fool my brain out of that by making it read until it shuts off.  I just think it is best to do something right up until you fall asleep.”  (My note:  This is quite insightful: many people accomplish settling their brains by watching TV or playing video games—in my opinion, we all have to do something, constructive or not).

Pg. 56:  Author describing going to church with her foster mother and the other foster children:  “Usually a child will make a fuss about going to church but we do not.  You might expect us to tug at our hats and kick the pews but we know better.  We behave like we are somebody because my new mama gets part of the collection money every week.  That goes for our support, or food and clothes. You go in that church and act genuine.  Even if you think what he has to say is horse manure or even if you believe it is a lie you sit there and be still.”