Looking Back - Ellen Foster

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
Fiction
1997 Vintage Books (first published in 1987)
Finished in May 1997
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"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."


My Original Notes (1997):

Very, very good! My heart went out to Ellen. What a life. She seemed so real, too. And, in spite of the depressing childhood she had, she had a marvelous sense of humor. Gibbons is an excellent writer. She pulled at my heart strings, but could still make me laugh out loud. Wonderful!

My Current Thoughts:

This is another book I wish I still owned. It's been ages since I've read a good Southern novel (or for that matter, a good coming-of-age story).