Foster

A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. And then a secret is revealed and suddenly, she realizes how fragile her idyll is.

Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent.

These book club questions are from the publisher, Faber.

Book club questions for Foster by Kristie Leigh

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

How old do you think the narrator is? When is the story set, and is that time period clear throughout the book?

The Kinsellas’ dog is never named, a point that the narrator only realises late on. Why do you think the name of the narrator is never given either?

The narrator says, ‘I picture myself lying in a dark bedroom with other girls, saying things we won’t repeat when morning comes.’ How accurate is the narrator’s imagining of the Kinsellas and her life with them in the first few pages? What do the differences say about her childhood so far?

When her father brings her to the Kinsellas’ house and Edna Kinsella cuts some rhubarb for the narrator’s mother, neither Edna nor the father will pick up the dropped stalks, leaving them on the floor until John Kinsella picks them up. What does this scene say about the three of them?

Why does the trip to Gorey seem so hard for Edna and John Kinsella? Why does Edna react with such strong feelings when an acquaintance says of the narrator, ‘Ah, isn’t she company for you all the same, God help you’? Would you say Edna’s behaviour seems reasonable, either to the narrator or to the reader?

What is the mood as Edna and the narrator walk to the wake? How does the author achieve this mood, and why do you think that feeling is there?

Why do you think Mildred is so curious and critical of the Kinsellas after the wake? Why does John Kinsella take the narrator down to the sea straight afterwards, and what is the significance of their discussion about the lights out on the water?

When she is recovering after having fallen in the well, the narrator says, ‘I lie there with the hot-water bottle, listening to the rain and reading my books, following what happens more closely and making up something different to happen at the end of each, each time.’ Do you think she has ever done this before, or that, lying somewhere safe and cared for, imagining things is a new way of thinking for her?

How different are the narrator’s feelings when her father first leaves her, compared to when the Kinsellas leave? What do you imagine will happen after the events of the book? 10.Are any of the feelings the narrator experiences throughout the book familiar to you? Which do you think the author has captured best? Do you think she has been successful in expressing some of the feelings we may all have felt when much younger?

Foster Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Foster discussion questions