claire keegan small things like these review

The protagonist is Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant in the Irish town of New Ross. As the story unfolds, it becomes evident how her language reflects the characters’ mental states, conversations and landscapes. Claire Keegan skilfully wields crisp as well as long sentences, conversational cadences, and Irish terms like stotious and lean by to sculpt an engrossing world of words. ‘In the tautly structured book, each sentence packs a wealth of information about the characters’ lives and milieu.’įrom the very first paragraph, Small Things Like These hooks you with its measured prose and poetic lilts. (This is the fourth of a six-part series, featuring reviews of books shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize) Amid the novella’s grim, grey winter and pervasive coal soot that coats the characters’ lives and conscience, that is a hearty achievement. Like a classic Christmas story, it warms your cockles. The story begins in October 1985 and culminates around late December. The narrative unfolds so gradually that when the end comes, it is a surprise.

Along the way come small, tender revelations. Bill’s existential angst could have just been another plot device or pointless psychological paraphernalia, but it eventually feeds into his personality and decisions.ĭespite the conflict at its heart, Small Things Like These eschews high drama or riveting peaks and troughs for a gentle progression. The domesticity the description of Bill’s family baking together evokes is in stark contrast to a nun rustling up duck eggs, black pudding, and margarine toast for Sarah. Each sentence packs a wealth of information about the characters’ lives and milieu. Keegan explores this in her tautly structured book. It’s easy to do good when there’s nothing at stake, but would we still abide by what we pay lip service to when the repercussions are life-changing? While he always veered towards the good-giving to charity despite his wife’s jibes and constrained finances or defending his daughters when the Mother Superior lamented that he has “no boy to carry on the name”-these were still within the bounds of ‘respectability’.

Bill continuously weighs the costs and benefits of rebellion and conformity, without any concrete answers for the most part. A battle between individual conscience and societal norms ensues, inserting a rift between the right thing to do and the convenient course of action. An encounter with Sarah, a girl locked up in the laundry’s coal house, puts Bill in a quandary.

Claire keegan small things like these review