Ellen Foster is a novel by Kaye Gibbons first published in 1987. It is the story of Ellen, the first person narrator, a young white girl living under unfavourable conditions somewhere in the rural South of the United States. The reader can follow her life over the course of a bit more than two years.

Ellen is an only child who does not have a real home, even at the time when both her parents are still alive. Her father is "trash" and has a drinking problem, and the whole atmosphere is one of domestic violence. Her mother has a heart condition and, when the novel opens, has to stay in hospital. From an early age on, Ellen's thoughts centre around how she could get rid of her father—she imagines killing him one way or another. When her mother is released from hospital Ellen's father treats her as badly as before, and it is up to Ellen to protect her mother from him. Soon, however, she takes an overdose of pills and dies while Ellen is lying in her bed next to hers.

After her mother's premature death Ellen, who is now "nine or ten", takes charge of the meagre household finances. From now on, she starts accumulating money, which she thinks she will need to have a better start later in life. (Towards the end of the novel, when she moves in with her "new mama", she has already saved $166.) In spite of her unhappy childhood Ellen is a smart girl; she borrows books from the library and is rather creative when it comes to spending her sparetime. Her best friend is Starletta, a young African American girl whose parents are even poorer than herself. She is attracted to them although she has been brought up detesting "niggers" and although she herself cannot overcome all the racial prejudice that has been inculcated in her mind all her life. For example, she says she would never sleep in a "colored house". Also, she refuses to eat or drink anything when she is at Starletta's, remembering the myth that if you use the same glass or cup as "niggers", the germs they have left on it will spread onto your lips and you will turn as dark as them.

On the other hand, her father himself has his "colored buddies" with whom he drinks. Ellen's odyssey (almost in a picaresque vein) starts when Ellen decides she can stand her father and his friends no longer.

• At Starletta's parents': First, she escapes, just for the night, to Starletta and her parents after her father's friends try to persuade him to let them sexually abuse his daughter.

• At Aunt Betsy's: On the following morning, having decided to leave her father for good, she packs all her belongings (they all fit into a box) and goes to her Aunt Betsy, her mother's sister who lives alone. Her husband has recently died, and they have had no children. At first Betsy treats her well, but she thinks Ellen has just come to stay with her for the weekend. Accordingly, when the weekend is over, she turns her out again, and Ellen has to return to her father.

• At Julia's: When he starts beating her her bruises are noticed at school and, for the time being, she can stay with Julia, her art teacher, and Roy, Julia's husband. Ellen leaves with all the cash. During that period, her father tries to get her back "home": He drives to her school and just wants to fetch her, causing some trouble on the way.

• At her grandmother's: Sooner or later the question of custody has to be settled in court. To her surprise, Ellen learns that her grandmother ("my mama's mama") is going to take care of her. Rather a well-to-do woman who can even afford two African American household helps, her grandmother turns out to be worse than just a grumpy old woman who does not really love her granddaughter. By her workers, she is referred to as the "bosslady", and she even makes Ellen work in the cotton fields during the summer. Also, she permanently reproaches Ellen for being her father's daughter and for taking after him, and claims Ellen is responsible for her own daughter's death. Also, she says she knows that Ellen had sex with her father's coloured friends (which is obviously not true). What is more, she suffers from persecution mania, believing that people around the house, even her doctor, are stealing things from her. When she becomes ill she expects Ellen to nurse her. This is what Ellen dutifully does up to the old lady's death.

• At Aunt Nadine's: Ellen's life does not improve when she is taken up by another of her mother's sisters, her aunt Nadine Nelson, who lives together with her daughter Dora. Nadine and Dora, who is the same age as Ellen, are a self-sufficient pair who consider Ellen an intruder. The big quarrel occurs, of all days, on Christmas Eve, when Dora gets all kinds of presents (toys mainly) and Ellen just a pack of white drawing paper, which she throws at Nadine's feet. What is more, Ellen has taken a lot of effort to make a drawing for her aunt and her cousin, but she overhears them talking badly about her picture. As an act of revenge, Ellen pretends she has a boyfriend who has given her a microscope for Christmas. Nadine calls her an "ungrateful little bitch" and tells her she does not want to see her again in her house.

• At her new mama's: In church Ellen encounters a nice and friendly woman, who she believes is called Mrs Foster, and her well-behaved children. She carefully plans to get in touch with them, so after her argument with Nadine she just packs her things together and goes to the house of the "Foster family". Actually, the "family" is a home for disadvantaged adolescents—a kind of foster family rather than a "real" family with the surname Foster. Orphaned after her father's death (of natural causes), Ellen does not tell us about the formalities she has to go through to be accepted, but the most important thing for her is that for the first time in her life she is given a warm welcome. Throughout the novel the reader learns how beautiful her new home is. Ellen has now also completely overcome her racial prejudice and is very glad that her new mama allows Starletta to spend the weekend with her at her new home.

Ellen Foster is not written in standard English. It is often grammatically inexact (a egg sandwich, growed, etc.) and generally tries to render the language of a twelve year-old girl who, in spite of being clever and ambitious, is relatively uneducated.

There is no hint anywhere in the novel as to when exactly the action takes place. It is clearly set after World War II, but it could be the present (the 1980s) or earlier.

Two time levels are intertwined throughout the book: one presenting Ellen's life from her present point of view, living with her "new mama"; and the other one telling Ellen's story from her mother's death and leading up to the present. The two time levels are united at the end of the novel, when Ellen is about twelve years old.

Edition

• Virago Modern Classics No.450 (London, 1998), 126pp. (ISBN 1860496059).