Small Things Like These

When a friend pressed this book into my hand, urging me to read it, I had never heard of Claire Keegan. The book was a one night read, 114 pages. I noticed it had been on the 2022 Booker shortlist but I find this is not always a good recommendation for me. I have before read Booker prize winners and shortlisters and not really been impressed, with one notable exception being my fave author Penelope Lively and her book Moon Tiger.

This book though is really something else and I am delighted it came to the notice of the Booker judges. I can’t say if I think it should have won as I haven’t read The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, the 2022 winner.

We are deep in the Republic of Ireland and for a while I felt the time must be around the 1920s or 30s. The author then hit me between the eyes and wrote a few lines about the politics of the time, putting us firmly in the 1980s, 1985 to be exact. We have all heard or read about the Magdalen laundries. These were ’homes’ set up and financed jointly by the Roman Catholic Church and the State where young, unmarried, pregnant women were sent to avoid shame being cast upon their families. Babies and girls were abused, neglected and many died. Babies were forcibly removed from their mothers and sent for adoption, sometimes abroad. The lack of any Christian qualities in the way these places were run and the way in which the girls were treated is just astonishing. There was no care or compassion, no mercy or understanding. Certainly no love. And then, sitting up in bed, nearing midnight, I read that these ghastly places didn’t finally close until 1996. Only 26  years ago, oh my goodness nearly yesterday. I very nearly shook my husband awake to share this information with him…but I managed to refrain.

So, the town is small and standing up the hill is this large foreboding building which contains a girls’ school and a Magdalen laundry. It is a convent and rumours abound about what  does or does not go on there. Bill Furlong, who drives the narrative along is a family man who has a wife and 5 daughters. He works hard providing and delivering coal, coke and logs to the local community, including the convent. It is Christmas and he finds himself thinking back to his own early life which is unusual and rather ambiguous. Without the kindness of one lady he might well have begun his life in the chilling building on the hill. He has never known who his father is but by the end of the tale this has become obvious to him and he can take solace in the memories of someone who was always there for him, who taught him to tie his shoelaces and did fatherly tasks without ever taking that name. The past is being shown to Furlong and he knows he must show the same generosity of spirit to others as he was fortunate enough to experience.

Despite knowing the trouble it will cause to himself, his family and the community, Bill Furlong rescues one of the Magdalen girls and then comes, to my mind the supreme authorial triumph. I was waiting for the chaos that would ensue when Furlong took the girl to his family as they were getting ready for midnight mass. But no, the story ends and the unexpected sudden ending is so right and so very clever.

This is so much a Christmas story and it envelops so many Christian values in this rather solemn character of Furlong. He knows what is right. He knows what he must do even if it causes all sorts of commotion. It is about love and it is about giving.

The writing in this slim volume is exquisite. Every word matters and nothing is said that doesn’t need to be said. Claire Keegan’s writing is restrained, haunting and understated. It says so much, with writerly skill and with overflowing human love.