Claire Keegan is an Irish author who earns consistently high praise by readers and critics. Winning numerous prestigious awards - the French translation of this novella was also shortlisted and award winning - Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.
A film adaptation is planned.
Her crisp writing easily wins you over in the story of Bill Furlong, his family, and a small Irish town at Christmas 1985. Furlong is a coal merchant with a team of men, and winter is the busiest season. As his family of five young girls (raven-haired like their mother Eileen), prepare for Christmas by writing letters to Santa and baking, Furlong remembers his childhood - the single mother who died young, and the wealthy protestant woman who watched over him - how he was taught to rise early and avoid drink, pleased to see his girls learning the small things like manners.
Making fuel deliveries he sees all kinds of families, with companies closing and people being let go he wonders how some get by. A coal load to the local Good Shepherd convent is a turning point, as he meets young girls who have been taken in for reform - the nuns run a town laundry, which some say is actually penance for girls in an unfortunate way. Maybe he is thinking of his girls, but Furlong cannot leave this amiss.
This simple story was the shortest shortlisted for the Booker Prize at just 188 pages. I have only read universal praise for it, and the writing is clean and inviting. There is a smooth blend of the nostalgic and melancholic, with modern issues, as Furlong walks the chill night along the River Barrow. This was inspired by real institutions called Magdalen laundries, where many women laboured since 1925 until they were officially shut down in 1996, the records destroyed or lost.
Claire Keegan is an exceptional writer - I have just finished her book of short stories So Late In The Day, which was deeply affecting.
Other Claire Keegan books I have reviewed:
2021 / Hardcover / 118 pages
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