The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster

by: Kaye Gibbons

Published by: Harcourt

Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart

One need not be familiar with Kaye Gibbons' debut novel, Ellen Foster, to comprehend or enjoy the characters in the sequel, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster. But since Gibbons gives little in the way of character description, it might help.

Ellen Foster was 11 years old when readers first met her 20 years ago. Now she's 15, with the same attitude and determination that saw her through the physical abandonment of her mother and the abuse and eventual abandonment from her father. She has a stable home and is doing quite nicely, thank you very much. After having tested in the genius category, Ellen wants a higher education, and she wants it now--not waiting to finish high school.

On one hand, I wish Gibbons had left Ellen alone. The plot is overly sentimental and too unbelievable with its Cinderella ending. The framing device that Gibbons employs screams first-year grad student. When something seems too good to be true, it often is.

On the other hand, the main reason to read this book is its use of voice. Surprisingly, two decades and several novels later, Gibbons growth as a writer has not interfered with Ellen's voice. It's still as naive and plucky as it ever was. I'm intrigued at Gibbons' ability to use long sentences, a technique usually associated with slowing a novel's pace, to make the reader's heart beat faster. There is nothing long nor slow about Ellen.

Gibbons also uses another unconventional technique and that regards structure. There are no quote marks to establish spoken words or to distinguish the words from thought, using commas to delineate one from the other, allowing only paragraphs to suggest a different speaker or a transition to another subject. Nor is the work broken into nicely followed paragraphs.

If I were only a reader, I would have a lot of problems with The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster. But as a reader/writer, the work was thought provoking and sure to stimulate discussion in my writer's groups and classes.

Armchair Interviews says: This is a book has a lot of media "buzz" about it.