Claire Keegan brilliantly reminds us that life is made of small choices. If we all did one small, brave, thing, the world would change for the better.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A concise tale that pulls us in the more we read. A beautiful reflection on the journey of one man's life and questions of complicity or courage to do the right thing against societal norms and pressures. The writing is exquisite and I cared about our protagonist. I don't want to reveal too much but it is based on a true story in the recent past and yet reverberates to today.

I highly recommend this book.

This book was just included in the NPR’s list of the best books of 2021, and I have to agree that it really is something very special. I read a review of this book by another blogger and she was so effusive about it, I went to look it up. That I found it on NetGalley and that I was approved for the ARC was a real surprise for me (NetGalley doesn’t like me very much, apparently). So, when the approval came through, I stopped what I was reading on my Kindle immediately and got to it! Also, since it is a novella, it only took me a couple of sessions to read it. Unfortunately, this review is a little late for #NovellasinNovember, but no matter, right? So here we go….

I have to say that there is something about this book that reminded me a bit of Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome” which I read and reviewed for #NovellasinNovember, as well as the upcoming #6Degrees of Separation. Plus, with that book so fresh in my mind, it was easy for me to notice the similarities. While Furlong isn’t quite as troubled as Frome, both of them have a type of heaviness in their lives, and essentially both books are very strongly character driven stories about the lives of hard-working men living in small, close-knit communities. Both of these works are highly atmospheric with their prose, even though neither author describes the settings of their stories in detail, since they concentrate on more on the thoughts and emotions of their protagonists. I also noticed that in both books, the other characters referred to the protagonists by their first names (Ethan and Bill or William), while the authors both used their surnames (Frome and Furlong) in their descriptions. I believe that this mechanic is a way for the authors to say that the narrator is observing things that everyone else can’t see.

However, Wharton wrote us a forbidden love story, while Keegan’s focus on Furlong is more of a reflection on his life and how he now moves through this sea-side Irish town. While that might sound like the depths of emotions would be more pronounced in Wharton’s book, I have to admit that there were places when I felt Wharton gave Frome too much angst regarding Mattie, and too much disgust with his wife. Keegan, on the other hand, builds up Furlong in a very different way. Furlong’s life could have been very different, if it hadn’t been for the generosity of his mother’s wealthy employer. This “there but by the grace of God” type of outlook colors Furlong’s whole life. So, even though he and his family are mostly just getting by, when he is in contact with those who are less fortunate, his compassion comes through all the more. Despite this, Furlong isn’t some philanthropist, he just tries to do right by people in the little ways that good people are able. That’s why when he sees a situation where his taking action and might make life for himself and his family more difficult, he is faced with a dilemma.

Rather than give too much away, let’s just say that this inner conflict that Furlong has isn’t small at all, and what he does is quite monumental, if you ask me. That makes the title of this book a bit ironic. I also have to say that the other way that this book differs with Wharton’s is with the ending. I wasn’t totally thrilled with how neatly Wharton wrapped up the very messy situation that Frome gets himself into. Keegan, on the other hand, decided to leave the ending open, so that the reader will never really know the full impact of what Furlong does. While I do prefer to have some questions left unanswered, so that the effect of the climax isn’t disturbed with unnecessary details, I’m not sure about how Keegan left this story. Yes, Keegan did leave me with an “Oh” moment with the last line, but not a “wow” one. Still, I was duly impressed with this story, and I’d like to recommend it very warmly. However (and this is a tiny however), I can’t give it a full five stars, as for me it lacked just a tiny something. So, I’m going with 4.75 stars, rounded up to five, which is still high praise indeed!

This is a beautifully written book about a courageous man who does the right thing in spite of the possible (probable) consequences.

I was surprised the setting was in the 1980's - - it seemed like it was much earlier than that. How horrible that things were going on in the convents as depicted here only a few short years ago.

The book is thoughtful and insightful - perfect for Christmas.

Title: Small Things Like These
Author: Claire Keegan
Publisher: Grove Press
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:
"Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan
My Opinion:

"Small Things Like These" is a novella in an Irish town in 1985 where Bill Furlong, faced with 'community pressure,' decides compassion. Be ready for a quick read that showed the depth and humanity of what was going on as Bill rescues Sarah from the convent. This story depicts the heroism of one man that opened the 'hidden sins of the Catholic Church and its parishioners.' This author gives the reader an excellent short story with an uplifting message: making good decisions in the face of adversity, optimism, and humanity showing there are good people even when bad things happen.

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for sharing a digital copy of this book with me in exchange for an honest review.

This book, or rather novella, was a lovely surprise - I had deliberately not read anything about the topic or theme before I started and absolutely loved it. Poignant, insightful and a beautifully portrait of mid 1980s Ireland. Thoroughly recommend.

A quiet masterpiece. Claire Keegan has captured the oppressive yet “normal” atmosphere in a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.. The story of a man who has never forgotten kindness shown to he and his mother, in the midst of parenting five girls , in a town with secrets and eyes everywhere. One day he makes a decision that will reconcile his past with his present. You’ll admire his courage, his awareness, and his loyalty to those who depend on him. As a student of the Magdalene laundries of Ireland, this is a story that shows humanity in its purest form. Highly recommend.

Lovely! I have been reading holiday books leading up to Christmas, and this was a great one. Really sweet story and great for the holidays.

Thank you to the author, Grove Atlantic and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This short novella is so beautifully written that it drew me in and transported me to the bitter cold winter of 1985 in Ireland, and into the life of an honest and good man. When he makes a terrible discovery, his moral foundations are shaken to the core - and he takes a courageous step that could have enormous consequences. We don't find out what happens after that event, but the atmosphere of the story had enveloped me so thoroughly by that point that I started researching and reading further - which is IMO the best result when reading.

’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.’

A hauntingly, quietly shared story set in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, in the days leading up to Christmas, 1985. Bill Furlong, a husband and father of five girls, finds himself on a routine coal delivery to the local convent. Bill is a good and kind man, and having been raised by a single mother has compassion for the unmarried mothers and soon-to-be mothers living in this convent. He was raised by a single mother who was lucky enough to have a woman extend kindness to her when she was pregnant at the age of 16, and that kindness has become a part of who he has become. In the process of this delivery of coal he discovers a young woman, recently pregnant, she’s been locked in the icy coalhouse and is traumatized, and is worried about her own child.

He brings her to the door of the convent, where these girls also live and attend a training school and laundry, stays for tea, but leaves feeling uneasy about the gap between what the girl has shared with him, and how casually the nuns diverted the conversation.

When he returns home, and shares his story with his wife, she urges him to let it go, they have their own family, their own girls to worry about. And there’s the authority of the Catholic Church, which she fears. Whispered words casting aspersions on them if they make a fuss, the talk that would spread, and the repercussions for them. Bill knows all this is true, knows there will be talk, and likely will affect them all, but he has his own life to look back on, and remembers the one act of kindness that was extended to his mother. A kindness that shaped his life, and thus theirs.

An quietly emotional parable, one that left me feeling, contemplating it for the remainder of this day, and undoubtedly will remain with me much longer. A reminder that kindness and compassion are blessings that can change a life.


Pub Date: 30 Nov 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic, Grove Press #SmallThingsLikeThese #NetGalley

As I began this atmospheric winter’s tale, I was struck by how suited Bruegel’s cover painting is, with its landscape infused with a magical aura and the little characters going about their everyday activities. Bruegel’s characters often embody sins and vices and offer a moral commentary, and similarly Small things Like These presents us with a spiritual landscape. As we zoom in, we find a Christmas tale set against the backdrop of Ireland in the 1980s, depicted as an age of bigoted morality and blind conformity with the controlling ways of the Catholic church. The book refers in particular to the infamous Magdalene Laundries, where young pregnant girls cast away by their family and society were incarcerated, humiliated, and abused and their children taken away in dubious adoption practices.

When turning a blind eye and casting the first stone seems to be the right thing, can a man defy the wall of indifference and stretch out his hand to help those who are scapegoated and scorned by everyone? A modern retelling of A Christmas Carol in which the protagonist must make a difficult decision amidst a symbolic landscape reminiscent of a morality play and its cast of characters, from the self-righteous and haughty, to the compliant and the compassionate.

A pitch-perfect, well executed fable that comments on a shameful past while also reflecting on the present and on the way marginalisation still operates in society. It reads like a fable that helps us imagine a different world rather than representing the dire complexities of reality. Exquisite writing. Perfect for Christmas.


My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

In 1985 economically depressed Ireland, Willam Furlong is getting by as a coal merchant, supporting his wife Eileen and five daughters who are source of pride and anxiety. They can just afford to give the girls just enough for Christmas, as Bill works long days to get coal to all his customers before the holiday. During his delivery to the local convent, Bill makes a shocking discovery of what goes on behind closed doors to the young girls held there. A product of an unwed mother himself, Furlong is deeply impacted to the point of distraction and some strife in the midst of the holiday celebrations that surround him, and indirectly leads him to uncover the truth about his own origins. A poignant and beautifully written novella, my only wish was that it was longer; it left me wanting more.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Small Things Like These by Claire’s Keegan

This story was very interesting and emotional. Coming from an Irish background, I it was disheartening to know what the early Irish went through in the poor sections of Ireland. Very down to earth novel.

Thanks to Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for my review..

Small Things Like These is a novella by award-winning Irish author, Claire Keegan which can be easily read in one sitting. In December 1985, in the little Irish town of New Ross, coal and timber merchant, William Furlong delivers a load of fuel to convent next door to St Margaret’s school, where two of his daughters are taught.

Sister Carmel being absent, he opens the chapel door to find a group of young women on hands and knees, polishing the floors, one of whom begs him to take her away. He has heard, and perhaps dismissed, the rumours about the convent’s training school for girls, that girls in trouble are made to work in the laundries. He gets on with his job.

Then, on the icy Sunday before Christmas, he has another load of coal to deliver to the convent. He’s a little early, and none of the Good Shepherd nuns are at the coal shed to meet him, but eager to get on, he unlocks the shed.

What he finds, or actually whom, is a shock, and despite the ready cover story that the Mother Superior provides, her smoothly convincing act, William is disturbed. Her veiled threat towards the future of his daughters and his business, should he make any sort of fuss about what he has encountered, while it is echoed by his wife and others in the town, disturbs him even more.

“…you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on”

William cannot forget that he was born to an unwed mother in 1946, and his mother had only escaped the same fate as those girls he has seen through the Christian generosity of a Protestant widow. But for Mrs Wilson, where might William have ended up? Can he really tolerate the status quo?

“He found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”

Keegan deftly portrays a hard-working man who is charitable and generous, both with what he has and his opinions of those around him. Her descriptive prose easily captures the setting and the mindset of society at that time, the power of the Catholic Church in small Irish towns.

This powerful little tale demonstrates just how the Magdalen laundries were able to persist in a first-world country until four years short of the twenty-first Century and illustrates the saying that evil persists where good men fail to act. An uplifting story.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Grove Atlantic.

Small Things Like These is a novella by Irish author Claire Keegan. It’s set in a small Irish town in 1985, in the lead up to Christmas. Bill Furlong is the local coal merchant and family man, dealing with the cold winter, his busiest time of year. An unsettling discovery whilst delivering coal to the convent raises questions of his own past and the meaning of family. Whilst a short story, it has a fable like quality and touches upon a disturbing element of Irish history. As literary fiction can, it makes you stop and think as it grapples with the injustice of life and an individual’s response. An empathetic, thoughtful allegory that captures the essence of a painful Irish past, with a most engaging tale and a five-star rating. With thanks to Grove Atlantic Press and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and are made without fear or favour.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

This novella takes place in cold and wintery 1986 Ireland. Bill Furlong, almost forty, a hard working coal merchant with a wife and five daughters, knows how good he has it. He knows all he cares for could be lost at any moment, knows that as the son of an unwed servant, he could have ended up in a very bad place. Instead, thanks to the mercy of a wealthy widow and the attention of her stable hand, Ned, Bill Furlong had a good life, even after his young mother died.

But Bill is feeling unrest. For all his reasons to be happy he is wondering if things could have been different...surely he's not thinking maybe they could have been better? He sees his future stretching in an endless routine of the same thing. Six long days a week of work and then every Sunday being like the Sunday before it. Always with work and worries on his mind, never a break in it all. Is this life worth it?

Bill is a very good man and it's hard seeing him filled with these doubts about his life. And then he sees something he can't let out of his mind. What happens is where his life was heading, prefaced by his giving of change to the needy, of his generosity to those who needed it, of his desire to treat others well, despite his wife's teasing and complaining about him doing so. When the story ends we know there will be strife and hardship ahead but there is also a peace that only a compassionate heart can bring to a man. This makes for a beautiful story at any time but it seems very much a Christmas story so I'm glad I've read it now.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

What a gem. This novella is precise and lyrical at the same time. It's Christmas 1985 and Bill Furlong, who was raised by his single mom in the Wilson home with Mrs. Wilson and Ned, is now a respected man with a wife and five daughters of his own. A chance encounter at the local convent leads to a revelation about his own life and a determination to make change. I loved this for the imagery- of Eileen making Christmas cake with the girls, of Bill making his deliveries, and most of all of the young girl he finds. Keegan manages to convey so much here and while I wished this was longer, it's actually the perfect length. You can read this in a few hours and feel satisfied. And, it will linger. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Wonderful read.

This is book I am not sure at all to review. I think I missed a crucial part of the book because after reading the afternote I was like huh.

It was a December of crows. People had never seen the likes of them, gathering in black batches on the outskirts of town then coming in, walking the streets, cocking their heads and perching, impudently, on whatever lookout post that took their fancy, scavenging for what was dead, or diving in mischief for anything that looked edible along the roads before roosting at night in the huge old trees around the convent.
The convent was a powerful-looking place on the hill at the far side of the river with black, wide-open gates, and a host of tall, shining windows, facing the town."

Bill Furlong is a decent man, risen from a lowly station in life to being a respected pillar-of-the-community sort. Not well off, mind, but a coal and wood supplier who keeps several folks employed, his customers supplied, and his family fed, a George Bailey sort, but from a much less settled foundation. There is never much left over, and always a new cost looming on the horizon. In the course of making his rounds he sees something that presents a powerful moral challenge. The story is Furlong’s struggle to decide, stay silent, or do something.

1985 is a grim time in New Ross. Ireland is in the midst of a long recession. Despairing of ever finding work, people are emigrating in droves, to England, to America, to wherever work can be had. Those who remain hold little hope for any near relief. Those with work know that they could be laid off in a heartbeat. Those running businesses know that their continued survival depends on the continued demand of their customers, and the customers’ ability to pay. Those without work drain their savings, survive on the dole, or what charity they can find. Too many, employed or not, drown their fears in drink. Keegan captures the bleak tone of the time.

"...the dole queues were getting longer and there were men out there who couldn’t pay their ESB bills, living in houses no warmer than bunkers, sleeping in their coats. Women, on the first Friday of every month, lined up at the post office wall with shopping bags, waiting to collect their children’s allowances. And farther out the country, he’d known cows left bawling to be milked because the man who had their care had upped, suddenly, and taken the boat to Fishguard. Once, a man from St Mullins got a lift into town to pay his bill, saying that they’d had to sell the car as they couldn’t get a wink of sleep knowing what was owing, that the bank was coming down on them. And early one morning, Furlong has seen a young schoolboy eating from a chip bag that had been thrown down on the street the night before."

Christmas is coming, and one might wonder if that starving boy was a descendant of Tiny Tim’s. Keegan even summons A Christmas Carol to mind, noting that, as a boy, Furlong had received the book for Christmas.

He had had a difficult start to life, raised by a single mother, his father not known to him. Luckily for them, a well-to-do local woman, Mrs Wilson, took in mother and son, employing mom to work in the house. Things could have been a lot worse. Like many other nations, Ireland was host to a network of Magdalene Laundries. These were institutions run by the Catholic Church, with the complicity of the Irish government. Young women who became pregnant were often cast out of their communities, their families even, and these enterprises took them in. Reports eventually emerged revealing the abuses these girls and young women endured, often being forced to give away their babies, living in degrading conditions, essentially forced laborers in church-state workhouses. Thousands of infants died there, and many of their mothers as well. New Ross was one of the places where a Magdalene laundry was run. It is one of the reasons Keegan chose to set her story there. This is not a tale about these laundries, per se, but one of those constitutes the immediate and very considerable dark force that Bill Furlong is thinking about taking on. While delivering coal to the convent, he sees something he was not supposed to see. To act or not to act, that is the question.

"Why were the things that were closest so often the hardest to see?"

The language of this novel, the imagery is powerfully effective, celestial even. I felt a need to read a lot of this book out loud. (trying to avoid spoiling it with my terribly fake Irish accent) There is a rhythm, a musicality to the writing that propels its powerful imagery towards the intended targets.

The passage quoted at the top of this review offers a sense not only of a grim time and place, but of the hostile force of the nuns, priests, and the Church, as embodied by the crows. The state, participant in the Magdalene miseries, is given passing notice when a local pol parachutes into town for a Christmas-tree-lighting, if it is possible to parachute in while riding a Mercedes and wearing a rich man’s coat. This is a town that is not being well looked after by the authorities.

"When she was 17, she went to New Orleans. “I got an opportunity to go and stay with a family there, and then I wound up going to university. A double major in political science and English literature.”
She remembers well what Ireland was like the year she left.
“I really wanted to get out. It was 1986. Ann Lovett had just died. I felt the darkness that is in Small Things Like These. I felt that atmosphere of unemployment, and being trapped maybe. And things not looking so good for women.
"My parents used to go dancing, and I used go with them, down to the pub. I remember everybody getting really drunk at the bar on a Sunday night.
"I remember looking at all the men at the bar – it was pretty much all men at the bar – and they were getting drunk and saying they couldn’t bear the thought of going back to work in the morning. And then others would say they didn’t have any work in the morning". - from the Independent interview

When she returned home with her degree, Keegan sent out 300 resumes and did not get a nibble. Erin go Bragh.

The harsh times have not driven from people in New Ross the ability to want things, needed or not. Furlong’s wife, Eileen, wants a proper, going-away vacation, as well as some nice things seen in a shop window. His children have small, mostly manageable desires. The people in town want an end to economic doldrums, some reason to stay around instead of emigrating. The residents of the convent want something more significant. Furlong is in dire need of a new truck to replace the one his business relies on, and which is nearing its last gasp. He also wants to know who his father was.

"Of late, he was inclined to imagine another life, elsewhere, and wondered if this was not something in his blood; might his own father not have been one of those who had upped, suddenly, and taken the boat for England."

He is no saint, but workaholic Furlong has that rare capacity to look inside himself critically, consider his life, his actions, in light of his values, even recognize where he might have stepped away from the moral line he believes in following. He had opted to ignore wrongs he had seen before, but for this father of five girls, and son of a single mother, this is a tough one to let pass. However, there are powerful, and insidious forces arrayed against his better angels. He is repeatedly warned, when he mentions his concerns, that crossing the Church could be extremely costly.

The cold of the season will make you shiver and want to add another layer as you read. Some Irish coffee might help as well. Will Furlong cross that bridge and do something or let what he knows sink into nothingness in the dark, frigid waters of the Barrow River below? You will want to know, and will read on until you do.

Keegan is mostly known as a short-story writer. She has won many awards for her work, which is marked by compactness, showing what needs to be shown to tell her tale. Do not dismiss this novel for its brevity. Small Things Like These is huge! You may not need to prepare a manger with fresh hay, but I would definitely make room for this novel in your collection this holiday season. It is an evocative, beautiful, moving novel that deserves to become a Christmas classic.

"As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?"

Review posted – November 12, 2021

Publication date – November 30, 2021


I received an e-ARE of Small Things Like These from Grove Press in return for a fair review, and a few lumps of coal. Thanks, folks, and thanks to Netgalley for facilitating. Bless you, every one.

For the full review, with proper formatting and links, please have a look on my site, Cootsreviews.com, or on Goodreads.

<b>Small Things Like These</b> by Claire Keegan is described by the publisher as  <i>" A story about family and love, set in a small town in Ireland, it has at its heart a good man, Bill Furlong, father of five girls, who, when faced with a difficult choice, must try to do the right thing.</i>

I could not have described it better myself.   Bill, more commonly known as Furlong, is a timber and coal merchant busily trying to fill all his orders in the pre Christmas rush.    In almost no time readers get the sense of his goodness, of the love he has for his wife and daughters.   He's a hard working man who seems to be spending much of his time mulling over his memories of  growing up.    He was raised without a father but he and his mother had been taken in and looked after by Mrs Wilson a wealthy lady who cared for, and helped raise him to be the man he is today.   Perhaps because of his own history he was less able to turn a blind eye to the goings on at the convent, to the treatment of the young girls incarcerated there.

This book though fiction was inspired by the many stories and haunting statistics surrounding the Magdalen Laundries.    What surprised me most was the way the villagers would gossip about what they suspected was happening but none seemed willing to intervene.   Even Bill's own wife did not want to risk the business they received from the convent by questioning what was clearly happening.   The story raised all kinds of questions in my mind about the lack of morals and, it seemed to me, the hypocrisy of the church.    

This book was set in the 80's but the last of the Magdalen Laundries was closed in 1996 and an apology eventually issued in 2013 to the many thousands of young girls and the babies that were stolen.

It was a very short book, easy to read and though the story itself only hinted at the situation it brought the Magsalen Laundries to mind.  My thanks to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review which it was my pleasure to provide.

3.5 stars on Goodreads