Kaye GibbonsRecensioni

I first listened to this work while traveling cross country. The voices reading the book rang true to the story and enhanced the telling. I recommend a good version of the book on tape for a wonderful listening experience.

Cute book. I have nothing profound to say about this book but nothing negative, either. I finished it and enjoyed reading it for the most part. No need to keep it on my shelves and I'm not likely to recommend it to anyone.

Picked it up while volunteering at the library. It was a slow night and finished it up before I left. I really liked her use of language. I liked seeing the world through Ellen's eyes and the truthfulness of them. The flashbacks kept a nice even pace. The very end seemed a little odd to me but Ellen was a little odd so maybe it all fit together as it should

A good book!

Nicely written love story, short and sweet

Ellen Foster is a tale of survival, courage and endurance. Ellen is one of the bravest eleven year olds I have ever encountered in literature, wise beyond her years, but innocent and sweet and deserving of better.

When she says, “My daddy was a mistake for a person.”, she could not be more right. In fact, many of the people she encounters in her short life seem to be mistakes, but she also finds hope and gets glimpses of what might be, and the determined soul that she is, she fights to have that better life be her reality.

The book is written entirely in Ellen’s voice, and it is both honest and genuine.

I know I have made being in the garden with her into a regular event but she was really only well like that for one season. You see if you tell yourself the same tale over and over again enough times then the tellings become separate stories and you will generally fool yourself into forgetting you only started with one solitary season out of your life.

Can you imagine having to hold on that tight to one memory and making it the central one so that the reality, that is so much the opposite, does not overwhelm you? I loved that she was able to do this, even though she clearly knows that is what she is doing.

With most novels written from the child’s perspective, we have an unreliable narrator and must fish for the truths that lie beneath what the child sees but cannot understand. Ellen is nothing if not reliable. She sees the truth so much more clearly than the adults around her do, and she clings to the thing inside her that makes her herself and keeps her strong.

So many folks thinking and wanting you to be somebody else will confuse you if you are not very careful.

This is my first book by Kaye Gibbons. I have had several of them on my TBR for a long time and one sitting on my physical bookshelf that I have managed not to read yet. I will not hesitate to read her again. This was her first novel, so I have every reason to expect she can only get better--and better than this would be some accomplishment indeed.

I remember loving this book when it came out.

Couldn't put this book down. Such wonderful characters and a very moving story.

Just a LOVELY read: set in 30s/40s N Carolina, three generations of women live together. Grandmother Charlie Kate ...a healer/ self-taught doctor - a tough-minded woman, devoted to her career; her daughter Sophia, who assists her mother but still has romantic dreams after a failed marriage. And narrator Margaret, the granddaughter, pondering whether to pursue an education or remain with her beloved family...but then, War is declared..

Brings to life the impoverished world of rural N Carolina, the primitive medical facilities.....
Although it follows the lives of all three, the stand-out character is Charlie Kate, and it's really the story of her life. Loved it.

Began reading this book after lunch and finished it before bedtime. First published in 1989, A VIRTUOUS WOMAN was an Oprah"s Book Club pick. A lovely little book about second chances and an unlikely match between widowed twenty year-old Ruby and Jack, a forty year-old tenant farmer, a union which endures for twenty-five years. This small Carolina parable has much to teach us - about poor choices, loss, grief and redemption. And love, of course. I was especially moved by its depiction of an old man suddenly left to fend for himself when his wife dies. It's a story told with sensitivity and grace, leavened with generous doses of country humor. So glad I found this novel, even thirty years late. I loved it. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

I didn't think it was as good as the first one - Ellen Foster.

Sad, but intriguing.

Gibbons' writing is excellent, and she provides just enough details. The book provided an illuminating picture of people I was not very knowledgeable about. The story was very interesting, and I'm glad I read it, but in the end, it did not amount to too much. I am conflicted; maybe I should just accept it for what it was.½

This is a delightful story - kind of Cold Sassy Tree meets Bailey White's Momma.

i found this book at a junk shop, not knowing it was queen oprah's selection. i paid 25 cents! it was so well written, imaginative and real. i wonder why i'd never heard of kaye gibbons before. ellen is strong, hopeful and inspirational.

The protagonist of this poignant novella is Ellen, a fifth grade who, like Little Orphan Annie, has a "hard-knock life" physically abused by an alcoholic father and neglected by a mother frequently in bed with depression. Although one might believe that this work would be a depressing read, the mood is lightened with Ellen's musings, such as the opening lines:

"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."

Much of the novella is an interweaving of three time periods including after she is placed in a foster home, which she described as a place where "nobody barks, farts, or feeds the dogs under the table..." I had no difficulty keeping track of the various time frames.

Essentially, the book is about one poor, but resilient, white Southern girl who desperately seeks a family and a mother to replace the one she loss. Her longing brought tears to my eyes, but the satisfying ending makes this work a must read.

I read this book as a recommendation from a friend and was lucky enough to find it at the Public library... It was a great read and quick! I love how the book starts out- "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figuare out this or that way and run it through my head until it got easy."

It made me wonder what this story was about- what had this poor 11 year old girl gone through.
Ellen Foster was a deeply delightful story from her point of vision.

This very short and spare novel features Betty Davies Randolph telling the story of her mother, and of her own childhood and young adulthood, marriage, and her daughter's birth. Betty and her mother Lottie were both strong women who led their lives as they saw fit (though they weren't necessarily happy in the end--are these stories meant to be the cure for her own daughter's dreams?). As usual, I would have liked more--especially more from Marjorie.

I definitely want to read Gibbons' better-known works.

Audiobook read by the author.
3.5***

In 1918 Mary Oliver, the child of well-to-do and somewhat liberal parents and raised in Washington DC, goes to spend time with her uncle Troop Ross, and his wife Maureen, who is expecting her first child. They live in small town in North Carolina, on a property a little out of town. Mary quickly learns that Troop is a bully, keeping his wife isolated, belittling her concerns, and threatening to put her in an asylum if she doesn’t shape up. The Spanish influenza epidemic further isolates the women, but also strengthens their resolve.

I have been a fan of Gibbons’ writing since the 1990s. For a time, I was devouring every one of her books; and I’ve read several of them more than once. But somehow, I missed this book until now.

I like the way Gibbons writes her characters. There are some very unpleasant goings on, and much of it makes me in turns uncomfortable, despairing, and angry. I was rather irritated with Mary for a time, feeling that she was butting in where she had no business. But as it became clear how much control Troop exerted over Maureen, I began to cheer for Mary’s involvement. This is at a time when women had few rights on their own, and yet Mary refused to be cowed by her uncle. And her strength empowered Maureen to fight for the freedom and respect she was due. Brava, ladies!

Gibbons narrates the audiobook herself. I really did not like her performance at all. She showed little emotion and it seemed like a student reading aloud because she was required to do so. Only 1 star for her performance on the audio. I think I’ll pick this up again at a later date and read it in text format.½

Although this book could be a little depressing, I found it a book worth reading. Fast read. I recommend it.

There's not one thing Kaye Gibbons has written that I didn't love. I read this book years ago, yet re-reading seemed just as fresh and new as before. You can't help but love all three of the women in this story - particularly the grandmother who was plain spoken, sharp witted, and a total riot. She's the relative every family has, the one person who minces no words, and commands respect even when she insults you up one side and down the other.

Her mother dead, her father poor , drunk and abusive, her maternal grandma an embittered and mentally ill woman...the ten year old narrator tells of her journey from one home to another...the family she was placed with- and returned from - and her final successful placement with a local woman, from whom she eventually takes a new surname- "I heard they were the Foster family." And the (curiously unknowable) lifelong friend, Starletta - daughter of an impoverished but kindly coloured family, for whom Ellen notices her feelings changing, from the perspective of inculcated white superiority to a true valuation of the girl as an equal.
She's a sparky, intelligent and self reliant child, and it tells a story, but not massively memorable.½

Charlie Kate, Sophia and Margaret are grandmother, mother and daughter, living in North Carolina in the first half of the 20th century. The book is told from Margaret's perspective as she introduces the reader to her magnificent grandmother who practiced as a doctor, though without any formal training or licensure and was revered by established medical professionals as well as those mostly poor and rural folks for whom she cared. All three women are well-versed in Charlie Kate's peculiar and holistic, brand of healing, which is also quite progressive for her time, as she responds to a hospital administrator who invites her to witness a new technique that she's "been doing that for years."
All three women also have encounters and relationships with men, though after her disastrous initial marriage Charlie Kate has no use for any man in her life and Sophia is all too ready to go head over heels in spite of her own abandonment and divorce. Margaret is cautious, not wanting to follow in those footsteps.
All three are lovely, progressive, intelligent and independent. I very much enjoyed the characters and though there wasn't much plot, it was quite enjoyable to become acquainted with them.

Kaye Gibbons is not a writer I have read before, but last year I spotted two of her books in a second-hand book shop and took a chance. Ellen Foster; was her first novel and it tells the poignant story of a precocious eleven-year-old. Hers, is an unforgettable voice, and through her eyes we witness a world of broken family, neglect and poverty, as she experiences casual violence and fear, things no child her age should live with.

“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.

The way I liked best was letting go a poisonous spider in his bed. It would bite him and he’d be dead and swollen up and I would shudder to find him so. Of course I would call the rescue squad and tell them to come quick something’s the matter with my daddy.”

Ellen is the child of a sick mother and a drunk, abusive father. Ellen is around nine as the novel opens, though the story is told from a distance of a couple of years later, when Ellen’s life has changed, and she is living with her ‘new mama’. The family she was born into, live in the rural south, it is somewhere around the late seventies – though I often felt it could have easily been twenty years earlier. There is still a lot of unofficial white/black segregation in the community. Though Ellen’s father has a group of black, drinking buddies, Ellen has been brought up believing she mustn’t stay overnight at her friend Starletta’s house or eat or drink anything while there. Starletta’s family are poor but kind, and it becomes a place where Ellen seeks refuge, a place where she can feel safe.

“I might be confused sometimes in my head but it is not something you need to talk about. Before you can talk you have to line it all up in order and I had rather just let it swirl around until I am too tired to think. You just let the motion in your head wear you out. Never think about it. You just make a bigger mess that way.”

Ellen’s mother is fragile, she cannot cope with the world in which she lives, and so one day as Ellen lays resting next to her she overdoses. With her mother dead, Ellen finds it wiser to stay as far away from her father as she can. Deciding she doesn’t want to live with him any longer she packs a bag and calls her Aunt Betsy and invites herself to stay. Betsy is one of Ellen’s mother’s sisters. At the end of a happy weekend with Betsy, it is revealed that Betsy had only expected her niece to stay for the weekend – not for good! Ellen is on her own again, forced to return to her father.

When the school spot bruises on Ellen’s body, she embarks on a series of temporary solutions. First, she stays with one of her school teachers, Julia and her husband Roy. Here Ellen feels cared for although she doesn’t always understand their way of life. Her time with Julia is short – and her grandmother – her ‘mama’s mama’ is awarded custody.

Mama’s Mama is a truly awful woman, mean and desperately cruel – she hates Ellen’s father and takes her hatred out on Ellen in the most dreadful ways. Ellen is tough little cookie, when she is put to work in the cotton fields under the scorching summer sun, she gets on with it, making friends with her fellow workers. When her vile grandmother falls ill, she takes care of her, the best way this poor, almost broken child can.

“She died in spite of me.
I tried to make her keep breathing and she stopped I blew air in her like I should have. She did not live but at least I did not slip into a dream beside her. I just stood by the bed and looked at her dead with her face pleasant now to trick Jesus. I said to her the score is two to one now. I might have my mama’s soul to worry over but you’ve got my daddy’s and your own. The score is two to one but I win.
I stood over her hoping she was the last dead person I knew for a while.”

Next to take Ellen in, is Aunt Nadine, her mother’s other sister – who Betsy has been fighting with since the funeral. Life at Nadine’s house is not happy either. Nadine’s daughter Dora is a spoilt, spiteful little madame who instantly makes Ellen feel out of place. On Christmas day things come to a head, and Ellen walks out – heading for the house of the lady with the nice calm, well behaved children who she had spotted at church. She had heard the woman referred to as the Foster woman who will take anyone in. So, Ellen knocks at her door on Christmas day – and is taken in. Ellen has misunderstood the Foster part – assuming it is her new mama’s name she starts calling herself Ellen Foster.

Ellen finds life at her new mama’s house to suit her just right, there’s a pony to ride and a large family who are immediately welcoming. From the way this novel is structured we know from the beginning that Ellen has a new life – a life she is happy in finally. I think it is that knowledge that makes this novel easier to read, as the reader knows that we won’t be left feeling hopeless at the end. In fact, there is a lot that is joyful and life affirming in how Ellen emerges at the end of this slight novel, and I had high hopes for her going forward. She reconnects with her friend Starletta, making the necessary readjustments to her racial attitudes.

The other novel I have by Kaye Gibbons is Sights Unseen – which I believe has a similarly rural setting. Based upon this powerful little novel, I have reason to look forward to it.

A story of two people who got together because they each needed help and then developed a deep love. The story's told from each of their points of view as and after she died. An excellent little gem.