With 'Foster,' Claire Keegan asks that readers look outward
Claire Keegan has been compared to the Russian author Anton Chekhov and fellow Irish writer William Trevor. She shares their keen sense of empathy, eye for the telling detail, and deep attunement to the moral issues raised by meanness and suffering for witnesses as well as the afflicted.
Keegan's output is scarce and her stories are as spare as they are heartrending, whittled down to the essential. If she has published anything that isn't perfect, I haven't seen it.
Since its original publication in 2010, has become part of the school curriculum but this new standalone volume is the first publication of the full text in the U.S. It is a beautiful companion to last her Christmas story and morality tale that makes Dickens' and Hans Christian Andersen's seem like glitter-dusted fairy tales. Together, this pair of Keegan's novellas pack a one-two punch.
