Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan | Book Review
I read this book a few weeks ago and it has been on my mind ever since. Through Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant who lives in a small Irish town set in 1985, the author weaves a quiet, yet powerful story.
Bill was born to an unwed teen while she was employed as a maid by Mrs Wilson. He is raised in her sizeable, comfortable home, under her mentorship and guidance. Even though Bill is sharply aware that he is perceived as illegitimate by the townsfolk, he knows that his life could have gone wrong without Mrs Wilson’s generosity.
It is through this lens that the rest of the story unfolds. Bill is facing one of his busiest Christmases and while making a coal delivery one day, he comes across a disturbing incident at the local convent. This incident plays on his mind, and he begins to see how the town he lives in has been complicit in allowing powerful institutions to hide their crimes.
“…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?”
Even though the story is set around the Magdalene Laundries scandal that took place in Ireland from the 18th to the late 20th century, the central theme is not the scandal itself but how a community’s self-interested silence enables perpetrators to continue committing horrific crimes.
At just 116 pages, this tiny book packs a punch, and I highly recommend it.
-Anju
