Here we see a family considered the poor relations with many children, and their better off relatives who are childless. In the depths of poverty, our poor young girl who has a hard life at home, ill-used by her elder sisters. She is sent away to be fostered for a time by the better off relatives. We gather that the father is a louche individual as he drives her there thinking about another woman and being generally unpleasant in the way he talks to his daughter. The girl’s mother and family are Irish-speaking but the father ignores that and speaks English with them. The uncle and aunt are wonderful in the way they greet and look after the girl when she arrives. They get her washed and dressed and when something about her home life comes up, the girl says it’s a secret. Well, the mother tells her gently there are no secrets in this house. The uncle seems quite harsh with the girl when they’re out in the farmyard, shouting at her not to go near a certain place. It’s only when we learn that they lost their only child who fell into the slurry pit and drowned that we understand the father’s concern. The girl loves her new caring uncle and aunt and her life with them. When eventually the father returns to collect his daughter, we are presented with the most enigmatic and heart-rending ending ever. It’s a long story of about 10,000 words and is being marketed like a novel, as is another great long story by the same author, ‘Small Things Like These’, which I could as easily have chosen, also concerning the treatment of children. ‘Foster was made into an Oscar-nominated film, An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) and ‘Small Things Like These’ is also in production in a film starring 2024 Oscar winner Cillian Murphy.
First published in The New Yorker, 2010, and available to subscribers to read here. Also published in book form by Faber, 2010
A Personal Anthology 