Book Review: Small Things Like These
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, 2021).
“If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on.”
So says a character in Claire Keegan’s book Small Things Like These, a short book that packs a powerful punch. Her statement captures the timeless dilemma at the story’s heart: What do you do when you see that something is wrong, but saying that it’s wrong could cost you far too much?
In spare, unadorned language, Keegan sketches the life of her protagonist, Bill Furlong, as it leads up to this dilemma. Furlong lives a stable, pleasant life as the coal and timber merchant in a small Irish town, well able to support his wife and five daughters. But his life very easily could have gone another way. He comes from “less than nothing,” the son of an unmarried teenage girl disowned by her family. It was only the generosity of his mother’s employer, Mrs. Wilson, that gave him a home and an education.
It’s getting close to Christmas, and Furlong and his family are caught up in the excitement and the planning, when Furlong delivers some coal to the local convent and inadvertently gets caught up in something else. An unexpected encounter with a desperate girl living at the convent leaves him shaken and wondering what his responsibilities truly are.
His wife, Eileen, is—understandably—adamant that his first responsibility is to his daughters’ future, which depends on the goodwill of the nuns who run their school. Furlong once would have agreed with her unhesitatingly. But now, as he ponders the girl’s situation, remembers his own past, and tries to reconcile his own faith with what he’s seeing at the convent, he can’t stop feeling that there might be something even more important.
Like all the best Christmas-themed stories, Small Things Like These draws on ideas central to the holiday as it spins its own tale of turmoil and hope. “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?” Bill Furlong wonders. There are no easy answers here, and no chance of a picture-perfect ending. But if he can find enough courage, there might, just might, be a chance to change a life.
Small Things Like These was recommended by multiple people, including my friend Karen Swallow Prior, and I’m very glad it was. It’s a good and memorable story to read not just at Christmas, but at any time of year.
(Cover image copyright Grove Press)
Book Links:
Small Things Like These on Amazon
Small Things Like These on Bookshop
Other Links:
At Dickensblog, I reviewed two excellent Dickens-related books, Charles Dickens: But for you, dear stranger by Annette Federico, and The Stars Between Us by Cristin Terrill.
I guested on a Christmas episode of “The Commentarians” podcast, watching and discussing It’s a Wonderful Life with my friend Joe Zaragoza. The episode isn’t up yet, but if you subscribe to the podcast, you’ll know when it goes live!
Note:
I’ll be taking the rest of December off from writing Dear, Strange Things. Enjoy your holidays, and I’ll see you next year!