Title: Small Things Like TheseAuthor: Claire Keegan
Published by: Grove Press on Nov. 30, 2021
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 118
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publishers Group Canada
Book Rating: 9/10
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.
Review:
Astute, thought-provoking, and memorable!
Small Things Like These is a short but affecting story that takes you to County Wexford during Christmas 1985 and into the life of Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant and father of five daughters who, after discovering some whispered but often ignored rumours to be true about the local convent-run laundry and the girls who are housed within, must decide whether to continue to turn a blind eye about the atrocities that may be occurring there or risk his stable, comfortable life and do what he knows in his heart of hearts is the right thing to do.
The prose is sophisticated and descriptive. The characters are gentle, kind, and sympathetic. And the plot is an exceptionally moving tale about family, morality, community, relationship dynamics, and the harrowing history of Magdalen laundries in Ireland.
Overall, Small Things Like These is a powerful, pensive, well-written story by Keegan where the space between the words resonates as loudly as the words themselves and is a beautiful reminder, especially at this time of year, that caring is truly the root of morality.
This book is available now.
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Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
About Claire Keegan
Claire Keegan was raised on a farm in Ireland. Her stories have won numerous awards and are translated into more than twenty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and was chosen as a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster, after winning the Davy Byrnes Award — then the world’s richest prize for a story — was recently selected by The Times UK as one of the top 50 novels to be published in the 21st Century. Her stories have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Granta, and Best American Stories. Keegan now holds the Briena Staunton Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Photo courtesy of Grove Atlantic Website.
