Small Things Like These

by Claire Keegan

Hardcover, 2021

Call number

FIC KEE

Collections

Fiction, New Fiction

Genres

General Fiction

Publication

Grove Press (2021), 128 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. The landmark new novel from award-winning author Claire Keegan It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

User reviews

LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

Ew. I saw several people on LT talking about this book - saying it was a beautiful story and so on. So I got it, read it - and ew. The protagonist is a good person, which means he spends a great deal of his time worrying vaguely about all the people who need help (the boy he picked up in the truck,

the various people on his Christmas Eve deliveries...). And then he gets slapped with someone who's in desperate need, with an indirect link to him and his life - and he finally decides to help her, in a way that's going to cause him, and his family, and his business, and everyone linked to him in any way a great deal of trouble. At which point the book ends (without going into what happens or how he deals, or doesn't deal, with it). What about all the other girls? What about...ghahh. Utterly depressing, pointless, and the worst thing is that it's (somewhat) true. I'm sorry I read this. It's well-written, but not a story I wanted to know at all.

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LibraryThing member Maydacat

Bill Furlong is a hard working and loving family man. Raised by a single mother, he longs to know who his father was. Through the kindness of those around him, he develops a strong moral sense and is always charitable to those less fortunate. While delivering coal to a convent, he makes an

unsettling discovery that greatly affects him. He learns more about his past. He is cautioned about challenging and questioning the nuns at the convent. And yet, he does the moral and right thing, anyway. This parable, referencing a dark aspect of Irish history, is both heartbreaking and heart-wrenching. Still, as readers, we are inspired to mimic Bill Furling’s actions, knowing that even one person can make a difference. You don’t need to save the world; sometimes helping just one person is more than enough. There is a message in this story for everyone.

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LibraryThing member Helenliz

This is a short novella, at just over 100 words, but it packs a punch.
Bill Furlong is living in Ireland in the mid 80s and times are hard. He's the local coal merchant and so ha s a reliable, steady income and is doing OK for his wife and 5 girls. But he is also a good man, he puts aside a bag of

logs for the young woman opposite his yard because she provided him a kettle or water to unfreeze the padlock on morning in the run up to Christmas. Well that's the reason, but not why he did it - he's a good man. He had an odd start in life, being the child of a single mother who was working as a servant at the time. Mrs Wilson did not turn his mother off and so the young Bill grew up in a secure environment, supported by Mrs Wilson, but subject to the sticks & stones of childhood taunts, nonetheless.
This is set in the few days in the run up to Christmas and it's a hard winter. The story revolves around a visit to deliver coal to the convent and what he discovers when he arrives earlier than expected. To say more would be too revealing and this is one you need to find for yourself. The final action is startling because it is the action of a good man, but it is also a very brave move. And it is not going to be without repercussions - and yet how could he not do it?
There isn't a spare word in here, it is all very restrained and in keeping with Bill, nothing is brash or showy about him and yet he makes a positive difference to those around him. He is never actually described, but he doesn't need to be. This is genuinely excellent, I read it in one sitting and was just not going to put it down.

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LibraryThing member pdebolt

This novella will bring back memories of the true story of a teenager, who gave birth in a convent and whose child was then adopted without her consent by an American family in the movie Philomena.

In haunting prose, Claire Keegan recounts the story of Bill Furlong, a coal merchant with a wife and

five daughters in a small Irish town in 1985. Furlong was raised by a single mother, who worked for a kind and generous woman who passed no judgement on his mother or him for his unknown parentage.

While delivering coal to the nuns, he comes upon a girl in the coal storage named Sarah. He is horrified by her living conditions and further saddened when she tells him she gave birth to a son, but can no longer see him. At the end of the book, Furlong decides to take Sarah out of the convent to live with his family. He asks himself, "What is the point in being alive without helping one another."

This is yet another appalling chapter in the history of the Roman Catholic Church when people knew what was going on in the Magdalen laundries and didn't have the courage to do anything for fear of repercussions. The number of women who lost their lives and/or babies in these institutions run by the church is staggering. The Irish government in concert with the church is responsible for the loss of so many lives.

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LibraryThing member EllenH

Wow! This one sneaks up on you! Deceptively simple to begin with and develops a life's choice dilemma that will stay with you. A well written, modern, morality story.

LibraryThing member AnnieMod

Bill Furlong grew up around women - he never knew his father and when he got married, he got 5 daughters. Despite his blighted (for the times) beginnings, he managed to become a respected man in his small town in Ireland. His story could have been very different if it was for his mother - despite

the shame of being a single mother, she did all she had for her son. And it paid off.

And here is Bill, making coal and wood deliveries to everyone in town, including the convent which overlooks the peaceful neighborhood. Except that the convent hides an ugly secret - unwed mothers and mothers to be are closed there, laboring for the Church for the sin of having a child.

The novella is set in 1985 - a time when you would expect that this practice had been long forgotten. Most people know it was not - there had been a lot of articles about it in the last years so the sins of the Church in Ireland had been exposed. But back in 1985, even if people knew about that (and I suspect a lot of them knew - even if they preferred not to), it was just one of those things you are supposed not to see.

In Keegan's story, chance (or something else) crosses the paths of Bill and one of those young women just before Christmas. And it is Bill's personal history that does not allow him to look the other way.

On one hand the novella is a powerful exploration of the fate of unwed mothers in Ireland - both with the story of the convent and Bill's own story. On the other hand though the story is very predictable and leaves you with the aftertaste of over-sweetened tea. You know what Bill will do before it is Christmas after all and his empathy for these girls is all but telegraphed through the novella. I am not sure why it had to be Christmas (he could have been as busy if there was a sudden cold snap in say February). Setting the story around the holidays seems like an attempt to add something more into but ends up cheapening the whole story.

It is a story that should be read and which shows the Church practices (and the Church apologists) at their worst. It is beautifully written - the language almost sings. But especially as short as it is, less would have been more here - the chosen time really robs the story of a lot of its power.

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

This book itself is a small thing too, but mighty. In 1985, a father of five daughters in a poor Irish village, born to an unwed mother, is uneasy at the treatment of the young girls at the local convent with a Magdalene Laundry. Such facilities were later discovered to have remains of unidentified

girls and infants buried in their walls, and these institutions have become notorious for the ill-treatment of girls whose "crimes" were becoming pregnant or merely being disobedient to their parents (the book and movie Philomena, and the movie The Magdalene Sisters, provide great visuals into the brutality). Bill Furlong, whose point of view is the lens of this somewhat theatric tiny novel, wrestles with his urge to fix the wrong he has personally witnessed, in light of what any action he takes will mean to his family's standing in the village. Beautifully told and easily devoured in an hour or so.

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LibraryThing member BibliophageOnCoffee

This book is...fine. It's a short, tightly crafted story about having the courage to do the right thing. Hardly a groundbreaking idea though. I guess I was just expecting a lot more out of it since it has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.

LibraryThing member lauralkeet

Bill Furlong’s life is generally quiet and uneventful. He grew up in a small Irish town; his mother was in service and Bill never knew his father. Now, Bill is husband to Eileen and the father of several daughters, and works delivering coal for heating homes and businesses. With Christmas

approaching, Eileen and her daughters are immersed in cooking and decorating. Bill is more concerned with finishing his rounds before the holiday. While completing a delivery at a convent–also home to a Magdalene Laundry–Bill makes a discovery he simply can’t ignore, and on Christmas Eve takes decisive action.

This novella is not a Magdalene Laundry exposé, nor does it fully develop all of its characters and their motivations. It is primarily one man’s inner monologue as he reflects on his life. The reader sees how Bill’s experiences shaped his values and ultimately influenced his actions that Christmas Eve. The prose is beautifully written, with every phrase concise and carefully crafted, with an ambiguous ending left me wanting more.

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LibraryThing member clue

I always try a Christmas themed book or two in December but I'm often disappointed in them. Not so with this one. A small book that can be read in an evening it is beautifully written and will long be remembered.

It takes place in a small Irish town in 1985. Bill Furlong is a businessman and

supplies the locals with heating products including wood and coal. The economy is rocky and he sometimes works long days just trying to collect what is owed. The busiest time of year is before Christmas when the business will be closed for two weeks. During the rush he does the deliveries himself and his men stay on the lot preparing them. During an early morning delivery to a local convent he stumbles upon a disturbing situation with a child that brings to mind his own troubled childhood and causes him to question what kind of man he has become.

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LibraryThing member GlennBell

This is a short but strikingly meaningful story. Although fiction, the story reveals a look at Maddalen laundries, which were present in Ireland and run by the Catholic Church. These institutions took unmarried women and used them as laundry maids and sometimes sold their children for profit. The

story is presented from the viewpoint of Bill Furlong, who is the owner of a small coal/fuel supplier business. He, his wife, and five daughters live near Waterford. Bill encounters the nuns, who run the laundry and accidently encounters a young woman who is trapped in the institution. He ends up rescuing her but is likely to ruin his life by doing so because of the political power of the nuns in the town. Bill is especially sensitive the needs of this unwed mother since he was born of an unwed mother and was given opportunity by the kindness of his mother's employer. During the story Bill learns that his father was a stable worker named Ned, who was also employed by his mother's employer, Mrs. Wilson. I liked the story and was able to finish the book quickly, since it is short and interesting.

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LibraryThing member TomDonaghey

Small Things Like These (2021) by Claire Keegan. This story takes place in a small Irish town just outside Waterford. It is Christmas, 1985, and this lyrical work centers on Bill Furlong, owner/operator/chief deliveryman for a small but slightly profitable fuel supply business. It is this business

that allows Bill, his wife, and their five young daughters to live a life full of all the necessities but little left for luxuries.
While things aren’t great for many in his town, the Furlongs are managing. Bill, making deliveries of fuel, drives the country lanes and byways in his trusty old truck. One of his stops is the local convent that also houses the school his daughters attend. There he finds a very young woman, in her early teens, trapped in the coal shed. Bill thinks of the rumors surrounding the laundry service the nuns supply, and tacit approval of the locals as to what else is happening on the grounds. Torn between what will keep his family safe and the “right” thing to do, Bill faces a hard decision.
The unspoken portion of the story, only mentioned in a note after the novella, is that the nuns of the convent are in charge of one of the Magdalen laundries that are spread about Ireland. This was a place shamefaced parents sent their unmarried, pregnant daughters. The laundries took in these young women who were then treated almost as slaves, or worse. The places were prisons with, in the example within this story, glass topped walls. Here births occurred and the babies sent out to well paying families. In return for this very profitable industry, the young women were allowed to work in the laundries, cleaning the clothes of the locals who could afford that service.
The Magdalen laundries were a great shame on the Irish Catholic Church and the government that worked in collaboration with the Vatican to run them. Thankfully the “laundries” were finally shut in 1996, but over the years there is no certain count of the number of young women, and their children who went through the process, many of whom died as a direct result.
I found the story well written, almost poetic in nature, the pages seeming to slip past in a quick like fashion. I was disappointed in the end as I was hoping for a fuller resolution to the situation. We are left with
Bill, having made a decision that places his entire family in jeopardy. Unspoken is the peril to the men who work for him and their families. Bill has a complicated past, being the bastard son of an unwed mother. His mother, unlike the poor girls trapped behind the convent walls, was taken care of by the woman she worked for, and young Will treated like a son the woman never had.
We can speculate as to the willingness of the people of the town to side with him and his family, or back the status quo. We can hope for the best. Too bad the book didn’t come to a conclusion after the events that would have ensued, but this story is not that type of story. Rather than depict the struggle an entire town would have had to deal with, the author chose to limit the pain to one man.

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LibraryThing member thorold

The scandal of the Irish "Magdalen-laundries" and "orphanages" is well-known to anyone who has read the papers over the past few years, and I've read several novels recently that talk about the terrible things done there to unmarried mothers and their children by the church, acting in the name of

the Irish state.

Keegan chooses a different approach in this novella, starting out from the thought that these institutions existed within wider communities whose members must have had a pretty good idea of what was going on inside the convent walls. But for years and years no-one dared to ask any difficult questions or risk getting into conflict with the church authorities.

She shows us the kind of barriers to free discussion that would have existed in an Irish small town in the 1980s, but lets a very ordinary man, the coal merchant Bill Furlong, accidentally come face to face with an egregious abuse of power by the nuns and step in to correct matters. We don't get to see how it works out, but we can imagine that as long as it's just Furlong against the united might of the Catholic Church, it's probably not going to end up well either for him or for the woman he is trying to rescue.

Precise, economical and very powerful writing about things that are always much less ordinary than Keegan is trying to make out. Very nice: I'm going to have to look out for her earlier books.

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LibraryThing member rayski

A very short story that ties to the Magdalen Laundries abuses in Ireland right up to the end of the 20th century and until only a few years ago received formal apology from the Catholic Church. A very quick read which I read twice back to back as I was searching for all the positive rave it had

received. After the 2nd read I came to same conclusion - short, probably too short. Would've liked a little more tying to the exposure of the abuses and how it all played out for the church (probably didn't) and for all those townspeople who knew better but decided the safer thing to do was look the other way.

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LibraryThing member elkiedee

Set in December 1985 in a small town in the Irish Republic, perhaps near the border with Northern Ireland. A local small business owner and family man learns something really shocking while he is delivering fuel (coal/timber) to the convent, as he encounters young women living there, one looking

for help to escape, one worrying about her baby who she has been separated from.

When he starts to ask questions and become very uneasy about what is happening, his wife and neighbours remind him of all the reasons not to ask too many questions and upset the nuns - they are good customers, and they have the power to decide on admissions to the only good school for girls in town and determine the futures of Furlong's five daughters. Furlong, however, was himself born outside marriage to a domestic servant who was allowed to keep her child, job and hope by her employer at the big house, a wealthy Protestant widow. He wants to help these girls somehow.

This novella set in the all too recent past is a moving and thought provoking story inspired by the scandal of the Magdalen Laundries in 20th century Ireland.

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LibraryThing member librarygeek33

A short book that kind of sneaks up on you. Painting with words. I found it interesting that it was written by a woman and really seemed to get into a man's head so well.

LibraryThing member bell7

Bill Furlong grew up the child of an unwed mother in Ireland, but was fortunate enough to experience love and care from the woman who employed his mother, and has grown up to have his own wife and five girls, working as a coal deliverer. In the days leading up to Christmas he discovers that all is

not as it appears in the nearby Magdalen laundry run by influential nuns, and must decide whether to do something or keep quiet.

This quiet novella packs a punch. I may have never heard of the Magdalen laundries, but haven't we all experienced a small, everyday event of injustice or abuse or downright evil, and had to decide what - if anything - we were going to do about it. I was invested in Furlong's dilemma, and will be thinking about his story for awhile.

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LibraryThing member Narshkite

A quick, easy, slight little morality tale which you can easily finish in one sit-down. It really has little to do with the abusive Catholic baby mills in Ireland. You could plug in hiding Jews from the Nazi's or educated people from the Khmer Rouge or the Red Guard, or many other acts committed by

ordinary people in the face of institutionalized inhumanity. The Catholic homes are the fungible bit of evil plugged in here. If there is one person whose words guide my life it is Elie Wiesel. "The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference." I am pretty sure that is the point of this book and lord knows it is a good one. So this is a well crafted parable with an important message, especially in an age where most people seem to think ranting on social is equivalent to actually acting on your beliefs. Still, there is not a lot of there there.

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LibraryThing member alanteder

A Classic in the Making?
Review of the Grove Press hardcover (November 2021) of the Faber & Faber hardcover (October 2021)

It is hard to know what will determine a seasonal classic such as Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843), Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory (1956) or Dylan Thomas' A Child's

Christmas in Wales (1952). Time is the deciding factor obviously, whether people will continue to read it long into the future. I definitely had the sense though while first reading Small Things Like These (2021) that it will become such a classic. I certainly plan to re-read it regularly.

The novella length story is set in Ireland and centers around wood & coal merchant Bill Furlong in the days leading up to Christmas 1985. While making his deliveries during the busy season leading into winter and the holidays, Furlong has some startling and shocking revelations. These are about the conditions in a local Magdalene Laundry and about his own personal heritage.

Author Claire Keegan hits all the perfect notes in this short and moving tale, which has both scenes of family togetherness and open-hearted charity and good will. A perfect read for any time, but most appropriate for the Christmas season.

Trivia and Link
I do like the timeless nature of the cover art of Faber & Faber's edition of Small Things Like These with its cropped image of Bruegel's The Hunters in the Snow (1565).

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LibraryThing member bookappeal

I wasn't sure where this short Christmas tale was headed as it developed the character of Bill Furlong, a boy orphaned at a young age, who has become a husband and father of five, making a modest living through hard work and sacrifice. As author Claire Keegan details Bill's daily life or work and

family in the days before Christmas 1985, she develops the real meaning of the story slantwise and indirectly so that, when it becomes clear, it packs an emotional wallop. A gorgeous parable about the complexities of doing the right thing that also shines the light on a horrific era in Ireland's not-so-distant past.

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LibraryThing member tangledthread

A Christmas novella: Bill Furlong is a hardworking middle class family man with five daughters, who was raised by a single mother. He and his mother were sheltered by a widow with a pension, protecting them from the scorn heaped upon unwed mothers in Catholic dominated Ireland. In this cold

December, whilst preparing for Christmas with his wife and daughters, he is pondering the past, wondering about the identity of his father and remembering the pain of being a fatherless child during his school years.
When delivering coal to the local convent/training school he encounters evidence of harsh abuse of young women....women who could have been his mother. A pivotal encounter with one such young women involving a passive aggressive stand-off with the Mother Superior leaves him stymied. Until he learns that this has become news in the local town, and he is warned of the consequences of crossing the sisters of the convent.
As he makes his last fuel deliveries of the year to his customers, he encounters want and excess in various forms among the families. His conscience prompts him to act, despite what the consequences may be which gives this story a heart warming ending.

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LibraryThing member davidabrams

I say this without hesitation: An instant classic.
An instant Christmas classic, no less.

LibraryThing member brenzi

Another new author for me but I can assure you I will be reading everything she's written. Beautiful writing relates the story of forty year old William Furlong who lives in a small Irish town and on Christmas Eve in 1985, comes upon the horrors that were the Magdalene Laundries, run by the

Catholic Church and enabled by the government. (As a lapsed Catholic, don't get me started on all the things the Church has done over the years that horrified everyone with an ounce of integrity or compassion.) At any rate, Furlong, whose own past haunts him, finds his heart won't allow him to turn a blind eye to what he's seen.

A quiet, beautiful, almost poetic novel that poses questions for everyone facing the idea of doing the right thing.

"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?"

A beautiful book and only 70 pages so do yourself a favor and search this one out now.

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LibraryThing member Cariola

Having read two short story collections by Claire Keegan, I looked forward to reading this novella. The year is 1985, and Bill Furlong, a coal supplier in a small Irish town, is approaching forty. Like many men his age, he has begun to question the course his life has taken, becoming rather bored

with the routine , demands, and expectations. He loves his wife Eileen and their five daughters, and he knows that his life could easily have taken a very different path. Bill was born to a young unwed servant who worked for a widow whose only son had been killed in the war. Instead of casting her out in shame or sending her to one of the homes for unwed mothers run by the Catholic church, the widow allows mother and son to stay, treating Billy almost as if he was her own. His mother having died in an accident when he was only tweleve, Bill is grateful for the care he was given by the widow and her stable hand. He knows that without her help, he never would have been able to complete the program he needed in order to secure his current position and provide for his family. Bill is a lucky man indeed.

In the days prior to Christmas, clients are presuring Bill to deliver their fuel today, if not yesterday. He's forced to work long hours, placing his eldest daughter in charge of the office, even rising in the wee hours on a Sunday morning to take a load of coal to the local convent before Mass. When he opens the shed, what he initially thinks is an animal turns out to be a girl about fifteen, barefoot, dressed in a ragged nightgown, covered in coal dust and shivering from the cold. Sara is obviously one of the "Magdalens," unwed mothers like Bill's own who has been taken in but forced to surrender her baby and to work the rest of her life as a laundress for the benefit is the convent. The encounter results in an unexpected surge of empathy, forcing Bill to question his and his community's blind acceptance of the way things are and the way things have always been.

Small Things Like These is itself a small, quiet book, the perfect read for a Christmas season afternoon. Keegan's writing is fine, and she does a remarkable job of enabling the reader to enter into Bill's world, his emotions, and his thoughts.

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LibraryThing member Dreesie

This novella (or long short story?) is a little gem. 1985, Christmas week. William Furlong--business owner, husband, father of 5 girls, and son of a single woman--makes a delivery to a convent and is left thinking again about his own life. His single mother, his unknown father, and the woman who

let his pregnant mother stay on as a housekeeper. What would have happened to them if it weren't for the now late Mrs Wilson? How close they were to being rejected by society. Can he do anything to change things? To change things and not hurt his daughters' futures or his relationship with his wife? What is he willing to risk?

Because this is so short, there is more unsaid than said--such as the ending, and any repercussions there may or may not be. And it is a wonderful little book, but I want the 600 page version.

Booker worthy? IMO there isn't enough here. This would be ideal for a novella award, if there is any such thing.

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