Small Things Like These

 

Small Things Like These / Claire Keegan
NY: Grove Press, 2021, c2020
118 p.

This little book is already garnering praise from everywhere, so when I saw it in my library I checked it out right away. And I read it in one night - it's a very small novella, a holiday short story really, in that classic Christmas story vein. I will not be surprised to see a tv special made from this and played every year. 

It's 1985 in small town Ireland, where Bill Furlong is a coal merchant and father of 5 girls. He's worked his way up from a rocky beginning as a fatherless child to a stable, successful family man. But it's Christmas week & he is very busy keeping supplies up for his community during a cold snap. 

He's delivering a load to the Magdalen laundry very early in the morning and stumbles on something he wasn't supposed to see. And he has to weigh what he knows against his social status & the well-being of his wife and daughters. The nuns running the laundry are next door to the good Catholic school his daughters attend & hand in glove with the local church as well. The right thing to do may not be the same as the expedient thing to do. 

This small quiet novel is told in a placid, straightforward style which contrasts with the dilemma Bill faces. It's a slow revelation of everyday heroism and bravery in the face of societal norms. And as such, it's still very relevant today. The quiet round of Christmas markets and presents and baking and wishes in everyday life contrasts strongly with what is happening right up the road, and must be reconciled -- by Bill, at least. What you might do in a similar situation is a question that every reader is left with. 

While I wasn't quite as taken with this story as many others seem to be, I can still appreciate the moral questions that lie at the heart of it, and its refusal to wax sentimental over the holiday season. It gets to the core of what the Christmas spirit is meant to evoke, a shared humanity, which is not always an easy thing to live out.