Set in New Ross in 1985 during a cold, wintry October, Bill Furlong is trying to get his family through a recession by keeping his fuel business afloat. He has a wife and five daughters relying on him, a pressure he feels intensely at times.

When he makes a delivery to the convent of the Good Shepherd nuns, he realises that something is very, very wrong. Known locally as a training centre for girls who misbehave or "get themselves into trouble" (an expression I detest to my core), the nuns run a laundry. Bill's wife is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of upsetting the nuns or getting involved in what's happening, but Bill feels like he cannot stand idly by and do nothing.

We all know at this stage what happened in the laundries overseen by the nuns - it will never not be angering, upsetting, rage inducing. Part of me feels like we've had enough books about it - another wants to make sure that everyone, everywhere knows what they did to women and children in this country for decades without any repurcussions. A question that often comes up when you talk about it is "where were all the men?" (many were at mass on a Sunday) but for this reason I'm glad that our main character here is a man. It shows the hold that the Catholic Church had over people - they did what they wanted because the risk of standing up to them was too great for some to take.

The one teeny thing that I wondered about was the presence of a pizza box in Ireland in 1985 but I am a pedantic wagon. This was beautifully written and will be deservedly huge upon its release in October.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC via Netgalley.

A great read. Very descriptive. An interesting main character in it that it was a man. I wish there was more, it was a great story.

It’s 1985 in a small Irish village with Christmas right around the corner. Bill Furlong, our main character, battles with inner turmoil in this short novella centering around his own upbringing and presently, the treatment of young women at a catholic-run institution just outside town that he makes deliveries to. Small Things Like These is stark and haunting, but also an excellent novella on compassion and empathy.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic for an advance readers copy.

Small Things Like These hits U.S. shelves November 29, 2021.

First Claire Keegan for me and days after reading I keep thinking about this little book and what a beautiful character Furlong is. It’s deceptively simple. I loved it.

This is a beautiful short novel that takes place in 1985 at Christmas time in a small Irish town.
Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant, with five daughters, who has been making his deliveries throughout town, and makes a discovery at the convent he delivers to.
This is a town controlled by the Catholic Church and the convent has offered a false refuge to young women.
Beautiful and tender story of Bill and his past, his family, and how he handles a difficult situation.
4.5

I didn’t know when I requested this book that this was the author of Foster…which I just loved!

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC!

A powerful read, beautifully written detailing an important time in History and the things that went on. A short and concise read but one that will stay with the reader for years to come.

This was a beautiful and lyrical story of small town Irish life in 1985 and the stranglehold that the Catholic Church maintained over the population. It was a time of economic turbulence and small business owner Bill Furlong is proud of his business and his five daughters and comfortable if frugal life. He has accomplished this in spite of his illegitimate birth to a poor teenager. In the course of his work he discovered the inhumane conditions in the local Magdalen laundry. He must decide how to respond.
For a short novel Small Things Like This summons to life a time, a village ,a family and a man faced with profound moral issues and social pressure to conform.

With its evocative language, it’s Christmastime setting, it’s snow and it’s summoning of the past it kept reminding me of James Joyce’s story The Dead. And yes it does belong in that rarefied literary space.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the e-arc of this wonderful work.

Wonderful short book about a hard-working Irish family man who has to make a choice. When making a coal delivery to a convent, he comes upon a young woman who needs help. While helping her, it becomes clear to him that there is more here than the obvious. Should he leave it at that or should he go against everything he has known and make a choice that could alter both him and his town? This book will be talked about for a long time.

I’ve had two books by Claire Keegan on my to read list for a while now. After reading this beautifully written novella, I want to be sure I read those others now. This is a work of fiction but it brings to light some horrible abuses on young girls and women in “schools” or “homes” run by the Catholic Church in Ireland. * It’s the story of an honest man, a good man who works hard to provide for his wife and five daughters. Always restless, a little worried about the future, but in many ways, his past is with him daily, still wondering who his father was, and still thankful for the opportunities afforded him by his mother’s employer. He makes an awful discovery one day just before Christmas in 1985. It shakes him to the core and tests his moral sensibilities with the fate of one young girl and perhaps others hanging in the balance.

This is the kind of story that when I read the first gorgeous sentences I knew that if nothing else, the writing would hold me. “In October there were yellow trees. Then the clocks went back the hour and the long November winds came in and blew, and stripped the trees bare. In the town of New Ross, chimneys threw out smoke which fell away and drifted off in hairy, drawn-out strings before dispersing along the quays and soon the river, dark as stout, swelled up with rain.” But it was so much more than just the prose that held me. It was Bill Furlong who is one of those characters who make you want to be a better person.

*(Magdalen Laundries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland)


I received an advanced copy of this book from Grove Atlantic through NetGalley.

This quiet, short tale is one with a deep message. It's about doing the right thing despite the possible consequences to one's own life. It's also very disturbing to learn that it's based on the facts of the operation of the Magdalene laundries of Ireland - horrendous and terrifying that such places existed in the name of religion.

This short novel invites you quickly and deeply into the unsettled life of Furlong - a man of character and reflection living among others who largely keep their heads down lest they disturb the status quo. One of the best Christmas stories I've read for some years now.

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE is recommended for fans of literary fiction. A slim novel, this is a story of reckoning and faith, religion and morality. The characters are well drawn and the setting is very evocative--a wonderful sense of place. Keegan really does transport the reader.

The tone is contemplative. While the plot does not move quickly, it does progress. If you're in a thoughtful mood, give this a try.

My only complaint is that the ending is a bit abrupt.

Overall, a memorable tale of personal ethics and what it means to live a good life.

This was my first Claire Keegan book and I loved it! Every year I pick out a book to read in December and this one will become a choice to reread this year. Now I want to read all of her other books. I love her voice and the simple lives of her characters. It's just what we need in this busy, crazy year.

...There but for the grace of God, go I...

The power of the Catholic Church has always cloaked Irish society. Priests and bishops dictated when one's path led to heaven and when it led to damnation. Claustrophobic restrictions governed what was acceptable and what was shameful. Authority is not questioned when infallibility is the ace in the hole. No one argues with God in the confession booth.

The Magdalene Laundry saga is a horrible chapter in Irish history. Unwed mothers, fallen women, any unacceptable females were sent there to be removed from society. Arrangements were made to adopt out the illegitimate babies while the women were hidden, mistreated and brutalized... free labor, all.

In "Small Things Like These", Bill Furlong is the hardworking father of five girls who supports his family by running his own coal supply company. It is Christmas time and the season has him reflecting on his own identity. Bill's mother was unwed, he never knew who his father was, and he realizes how fortunate he had been that his mother's employer, Mrs. Wilson took part in raising Bill when his mother died. He still had to deal with the scorn and ridicule of a tarnished past, but he was able to earn a good life for his family.

On the eve of Christmas Bill has to make a delivery to the Magdalene Laundry and Training School in town. The cruelty he stumbles onto there shakes his faith to the core. The Mother Superior confronts him and pressures him to accept that everything is fine, reminding him that nothing happening in the school affects him or his family. Back at home his wife tells him there are just some things in life we have to ignore to stay on the right side of people. Can Bill ignore what his conscience calls on him to do?

So many things come to mind when reading a work like this. We know what happens when the guilty are indulged because of the repercussions involved when calling them out. The Holocaust and other ethnic cleansings are the most blatant cases. North America has its own versions seen in recent discoveries of indigenous mass graves outside of "residential boarding schools" in Canada and the United States. How far off is the subject of detention centers filled with incarcerated immigrant children?

Author Claire Keegan has written a brilliant tale illuminating a disgraceful institution allowed to plague Irish life for over 200 years. I rate it five stars, an excellent examination of an individual wrestling with what he is told to do versus what his heart tells him. I thank Grove Atlantic Press, Claire Keegan, and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review. #SmallThingsLikeThese #NetGalley #GroveAtlantic


"Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries" -- Joni Mitchell / "The Magdalene Laundries"

Author Claire Keegan has written a slender masterpiece that is haunting, heartbreaking and soul affirming. I read this perfect book in one sitting. I could not put it down. The tragedy of the Magdalena Laundries will haunt Ireland forever and justly so. The Catholic Church in Ireland has yet to even acknowledge or apologize for the tragedy they caused to untold thousands of young girls and babies. For an institution based on penance, the church has yet to practice what it preaches.

Small Things Like These is beautifully written, its language poetical and almost lyrical, like you can hear the Irish lilt in its words. A story of compassion, confusion and courage, I found it inspiring overall. However, it felt a little slow to me. The story is a bit of an exposé on truly horrible abuses of girls in Ireland, even until the 1990s. I wish there had been more focus on that part of the story and a bit less musing by the main character. The story is short but I felt it hé topic was worthy of taking more time to fully build out the circumstances and the characters into something longer with more depth. A worthwhile read, however.

I loved this but was left wanting more! In fact it ends so abruptly I feel I must have received a defective copy. What I did read was wonderful, very atmospheric and true to the era. I felt transported in time. It was the first time reading this author but I will certainly seek her writings out in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing me with an ARC to review.

This lean, transcendent novel creates such a clear sense of place and time in so few words and pages that I was and remain stunned. It is in some ways a small story, but a small story that eventually links the very specific locale to a much bigger set of issues and ideas, not only for Ireland but for humanity. As a teacher, I appreciate the short length as it makes it easier to recommend to students, and this is a work I will definitely recommend. I know Claire Keegan is a much-celebrated author, but this is the first of her I have read, and I will now certainly scramble to find earlier works.

• Thank you to Grove Press and NetGalley for providing this Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is November 30, 2021.

Bill Furlong is a coal merchant In a small Irish town. He is also a family man and a father of five girls who attend the local Catholic school. One winter night, just before Christmas, he makes a discovery while delivering coal to the local convent. It seems that the nuns have taking in unwed mothers and other poor children only to mistreat them and use them to run their laundry and adoption business. Bill debates about saving one girl who he found locked in a shed overnight in the bitter cold. But his better nature takes over and, going against the most powerful entities in the community, that being the Catholic Church and the government, he rescues the girl and takes her home. The story ends just as he is walking to his front door with the orphan girl. Will his family except her? What has he started and how will it end?

In the authors note we learn that thousands were killed in these institutions that “were run and financed by the Catholic Church in concert with the Irish State. No apology was issued by the Irish government over the Magdalen laundries until Taoiseach Enda Kenny did so, in 2013.”

LOVED this novella! In a short time Claire Keegan carries you deeply into the mind, heart and soul of a relatively young man, Furlong, during the Christmas season in a small town in Ireland in the 1980’s. Furlong is Mattie and the father of 5 daughters. He is a man who has managed to bring himself into a respectable and respected life after being born into circumstances long considered unredeemable by the Catholic Church, particularly in Ireland. Fortunately, he did know love and acceptance in his small but unconventional “family” and learns the purity of love he holds in his heart. Unlike many, he yearns to share this with others beyond what is accepted by his family and what is considered acceptable by the Church. He is given a surprising opportunity to do so on a snowy Christmas Eve.