Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Small Things Like These is another prize-worthy book of fiction. As maybe a unique element, it’s a novella of less than 30,000 words. It was published in 2021 and was cited by the New York Times as a top-rated book and top seller and it was winner or nominated for 4 other awards (mostly in Europe) and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize which is, of course, a major award, and its being shortlisted speaks to the book’s quality.

Claire Keegan is a well-known Irish writer with several awards and high recognition for her published works, many of which have been translated into numerous languages. So one might expect a good story, and one that comes to life as one reads.

Thankfully the number of effusive praise blurbs is manageable and those included on the back cover of my Grove Press copy are both legitimate and brief. This does, however, leave one to wonder what is so  special about a novella with less than 30,000 words (most traditional novels will have something north of 75,000 words – and some say that’s a bare minimum.)

So, the book is short but definitely read-worthy. It takes place in 1985 in a small Irish town. The protagonist, a man who owns a wood and coal delivery business, is well known and respected for both his reliability and his willingness to work with customers on payment terms. I.E., he’s a good man. One of his key customers is the local convent where the nuns take in and care for girls who have become pregnant. Of course, it’s the girls’ fault in the eyes of society and thus, on the surface, it appears the convent is providing a needed and humane service. However, our protagonist, Bill Furlong, discovers that the convent may be mistreating the girls and taking their babies away with impunity. He doesn’t address this openly. He doesn’t determine to help them under a master plan. He doesn’t call out the inhumane actions of the convent and in truth doesn’t fully know their extent. He doesn’t openly judge them. But his soul is moved to action.

We feel this evolution from discovery to observation to a type of disinterested suspicion and finally, a crossing over into his soul, and being moved to action, although that transition is very subtle and understated. That is, it’s very Irish. Of course the understatement and slow-to-develop drive to action also involves the convent which is a central figure – nay, it’s a character, under-developed but there nonetheless, in its own right – in the town and in the story. The place has power and crossing that power may have consequences to one’s place in society and the legitimacy that one has. This aspect of the book is also understated and underplayed as minor characters confront Bill with the specter of trouble if he crosses that institution. There’s a full-term paper yet to be written on this alone, especially since it’s there, but not there at the same time.

Keegan’s language is sparse and spare and Irish to the hilt. Here are a few samples:

Helping someone p 11:

“I suppose you stopped.”

“Wasn’t it spilling rain. I pulled over…”

After making ready a cake for baking p 21, the narration reads that mother:

            …told the girls to clear down so she could get on, and start the ironing.

Being offered tea by someone p 57:

            “The kettle’s on. Here,” she said, reaching for it. “Won’t you take it on you.”

            “Surely you’ll want this for your tea.”

            “Take it on with you, “ she said. “You know there’s no luck to be had in refusing a man water.”

Another narration that is Irish to the core p 60:

            He could not say which he rathered; the sight of the…

It is this true Irish narration and dialog that takes us along. Just as some connecting words may be missing, or some words are formed to serve 2 purposes a la ‘rathered,’ the sparseness of the book itself provides the understatement where we can see Furlong struggling with his conscience and wondering at the power of the convent to do what they wish and not have anyone raise an objection. So not all he is thinking is revealed, but we get enough to assume the rest, and in his final action are largely not surprised, AND we are aware of the risks he takes.

Finally, the movie. Available on Amazon Prime, Small Things Like These stars Cillian Murphy (who starred in Oppenheimer,) as Bill Furlong.

Good movie but, true to the novella, it’s not a blockbuster and Furlong’s actions are done quietly and not maybe so efficiently, and also in an everyday manner (the everyday is woven into the book.) So if you eschew reading, then watch the movie. But from my perch, the book conveys – without saying it – the moral struggle building in Furlong which, talent notwithstanding, is difficult to portray or project through a character whose thoughts and deliberations are done so internally and not shared externally, that Furlong’s final actions may surprise us in the movie, as opposed to the novella where we get inside the man through the narrator. And getting inside, to the core that drives him, seems too important to miss.