Small Things Like These (Oprah's Book Club)

thenextgoodbook.com

What’s it about?

Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant in a small town in Ireland. It is 1985 and the Catholic Church is a powerful presence in his community. As Christmas Day approaches Bill finds himself reminiscing about the past, as he struggles with questions of conscience versus faith.

What did it make me think about?

Does this story really take place in 1985?

Should I read it?

This is a beautifully written book. Claire Keegan joins a long list of Irish writers that should not be missed. She has written a revelatory character in Bill Furlong. How she manages to convey so much in 114 pages is astonishing. Even more powerful is the fact that it is loosely based on the Magdalen laundries that the Catholic Church ran in Ireland all the way up to 1996. How was that even possible? This is literary fiction at its best!

Quote-

“Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same- or would they just lose the run of themselves? Even while he’d been creaming the butter and sugar, his mind was not so much upon the here and now and on this Sunday nearing Christmas with his wife and daughters so much as on tomorrow and who owed what, and how and when he’d deliver what was ordered and what man he’d leave to which task, and how and where he’d collect what was owed- and before tomorrow was coming to an end, he knew his mind would already be working in much the same way, yet again, over the day that was to follow”.

Lesa's recommendation. Set in an Irish town. Connects to the Catholic laundries for single mothers. A quick read.

Keegan is primarily a short story writer, and this novella showcases her surgical precision. A spare accounting of the moral dilemma faced by an Irish tradesman and father in the mid 80s, Small Things Like These efficiently paints its small town scene and illustrates its characters’ daily lives. Ultimately I thought the moral quandary could have been explored more deeply by centering a more conflicted character, but this book made me want to read more by this author.

This book takes place in Ireland in 1916. Bill Furlong is a coal merchant, married, with five daughters. One day when delivering coal to a convent he encounters a young girl begging for his help to escape. The Magdelene Laundries were notorious for their harsh treatment of young unwed mothers. This book was more about Bill and the kind of man he was- good, generous, kind.

Beautiful, poignant. Life like. How do you choose what’s right, even if it’s hard? What do you do when there are many who are hurting but only one you can help? Great questions asked in the novel, great ruminations on them, and great answers found.