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 Kaye Gibbons's much acclaimed first novel. The story of an eleven year old orphan, driven to desperation by some of the wickedest relatives in literary history, this is the story of her battle for survival. Wise, funny and affectionate, Walker Percy called it. 'The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heart-wrenching novel . . . {Ellen Foster} is as much a part of the backwoods South as a Faulkner character - and a good deal more endearing'.