Small things like these

On the heels of the Philomena film, now comes “Small Things Like These” written by the incomparable Claire Keegan. A bit like her novella “Foster,” there are some implications of the story which are left unwritten and the reader fills in what his family will make of his taking this young girl home with him: “When he managed to get her out and saw what was before him—-a girl just about fit to stand with her hair roughly cut—the ordinary part of him wished he’d never come near the place.” And no wonder. Bill Furlong relies on the coal and wood trade for his livelihood; his wife is planning on some home improvements in the new year with what they have been able to set aside despite their own daughters and the economic conditions for a tradesperson in a small rural town in Ireland in the mid 80s—-when the Church still had its grasp and was the most important institution in the town. And why would he rescue a wee girl in the coal room in the cold and damp, why would he be so reminded of his mother and people who had been kind to him when he was a boy, and why in the world would he do the right thing when it would be controversial, cause tension at home with wife Eileen, and wonderment in the daughters he already has. This small book won the Orwell prize in Britain for political writing in 2022 and was short listed for the Booker Prize. It takes less than a hour to read but it lingers long in your imagination: what would you have done? Bill Furlong had moral courage at a time when it was easier to look away and just not pay attention to injustice and, even, cruelty. It’s a great, fast read, but especially at Christmastime.

[Spoiler Alert] This novella, like The Women, which I read recently, taught me another slice of history in which women’s stories were sidelined and silenced. Although the story is essentially about the experiences of women, it is interestingly told though the eyes of a man: Mr Furlough. It is an interesting choice because he — unlike the others in his community, especially women — questions the treatment of women in the convent where others dismiss his views. Furlough is himself a child of an unwed teenager mother. But he is fortunate because his mother worked as a maid to the wealthy Mrs Wilson. Although he never knew who his father was, it is later revealed to him. Someone remarks how much he looks like Ned and asks if he is part of the Wilson family. He puts two and two together and realises that Ned must be his father and that’s why Mrs Wilson treated him so well—relatively, for an illegitimate child. Furlough realises that in other circumstances, his mother may have ended up in a convent just like Sarah, whom he rescues. He discovers Sarah initially when he is making a delivery of coal to the convent and she begs him to take her away or let her escape. Her tattered clothes, bruises and floor polishing work etches into his memory. The next time he sees her is when she is locked in a shed. She has “excrement” around her and the implication is that she has recently had a child. She reveals as much, begging to be able to feed her child whom she does not even know where he/she has gone. The Mother Superior insists that Furlough stay and it is a performance to essentially bribe his silence. The MS forces Sarah to give some implausible explanation for why she was in the shed (playing hide and seek) and makes a show of giving her food and allowing her to “be idle for the day”. The MS hands Ben an envelope suggesting that it is advanced payment for deliveries but Ben knows it is a bribe and that thought torments him as he leaves. His wife, Eileen, makes short shrift of Furlough’s concerns, reminding him that aren’t things very good for them; hasn’t he worked hard to make sure they are not in debt; and what matters about what happens at the convent, the important thing is that their five girls are doing well. Another neighbour more or less tells him not to be nosy—after all these convents are run by the Catholic Church. Furlough decides to rescue Sarah. He does not know if she will be back in the shed but she is and he decides to take her home. The novella leaves a cliffhanger — you do not know how Sarah is received at home, how Eileen and his daughters react. But this is all secondary to Furlough’s belief that he is doing the right thing. And I think the author has left it open so we can discuss and consider why Furlough did what he did, and perhaps ask what we would have done if we had been in his position. Furlough is more courageous than it seems many others are. He is grateful for the life he has had thanks to the Wilsons. When the MS remarks that it’s unfortunate he hasn’t got any boys to continue his name, he quietly says that he has his mother’s name, and hasn’t he turned out alright? This novella will stay with me. Already it has prompted me to read about the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland (see also the author’s note at the end).

At a mere 128 pages it is an excellent example of how the short novel can carry a huge impact. It is a gem, winning the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio and Booker prizes. It takes place in 1985 in a town in Ireland, and concerns a man named Bill Furlong who is a coal merchant and devoted family man with daughters. It is a time of economic challenges but Bill does okay, though it feels a little precarious nonetheless. For reasons related to his childhood and his upbringing he is keenly aware of moral choices and how one person’s small act of generosity can be seen a form of heroism in the right circumstance, and before the book is finished he has the opportunity to put that into action for himself. The specificity of the prose is riveting, with nuance and depth of meaning that are layered throughout the polite conversations of the characters. And there is so much that is unsaid, hovering just outside the page, understated but powerful.

William Furlong lives a good if not well-to-do life. He operates a coal and timber hauling business in an Irish town, providing a decent living for himself, his family, and the people who work for him. It’s now nearing Christmas, and his biggest concerns seem to be his youngest daughter’s negative response to Santa Claus and the usual rush of delivery orders that happens as the holiday approaches. Furlong might not have been expected to have achieved a good life and a sound family. He was born illegitimate. His mother was a maid in the big house outside town owned by a wealthy Protestant family. He never knew his father, although another man working for the family took him in hand and treated him like a son. His mother was unbelievably fortunate in not having been dismissed by her employer; instead, the matriarch seemed to go out of her way to help the woman and her baby. Which, of course, led to all kinds of rumors. He's always wondered who his father was, but he’s never known for sure. But this is the mid-1980s, and DNA ancestry testing is not “a thing” yet. But as he ages, this unknown father helps feed a sense of unease and dissatisfaction, what he might consider as a minor mid-life crisis. He finds himself delivering a load of coal unexpectedly early one Sunday morning to the local convent. The nuns operate the school his daughters attend, the convent itself, and a home for girls. The nun who usually meets him for the delivery isn’t there, so he finds his way behind the building to the coal storage bin, opens it, and discovers a young girl, shivering and terrified. He gets her inside to the nuns, discovering that he has stumbled into something else entirely. When he’s cautioned by the nuns and people outside the convent, including his wife, not to speak of it, he finds himself growing more restless. He knows something is happening in the convent that shouldn’t be, and it’s as if the whole town, and even his wife, are part of a conspiracy of silence. But he’s reminded of the kindness of the employer to his mother and himself, and he realizes that kindness is a kind of redemption. “Small Things Like These” by Irish writer Claire Keegan tells William Furlong’s story. The short novel, simply beautifully told, is a small window on what was then hidden but is now known as the national Irish scandal involving unwed mothers and the selling of their babies for decades. Keegan is best known for her short stories, which have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Granta, Best American Short Stories, and The Paris Review, among others. Her writing has won numerous awards and recognitions, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, and several short story awards. She studied English and political science at Loyola University in New Orleans, received a M.S. degree in creative writing at the University of Wales, and a M.Phil degree from Trinity College Dublin. She lives in rural Ireland. You don’t get the full story of the Irish baby scandal in this novel, shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, but you do get a glimpse, not unlike the glimpse that the characters in the story get. And it’s enough to know that something is very wrong with the institution that is the very heart and soul of the town. But as William’s wife tells him, “This is not our concern.” William Furlong comes to realize otherwise.

This novella uses an encounter between a villager and a child trying to escape from "homes" for "wayward" girls run by Irish Catholic Orders to reveal the scandal of child servitude and abuse allowed to flourish through the turning of a blind eye, misogyny and greed of those in authority. With understated, implied meaning, Claire Keegan recreates an Irish village whose thinking is dominated by the doctrines of the Catholic Church and the moral courage one villager shows to resist social pressure—and the price he is likely to pay.

It has the virtues of a novel, with very little exposition, only understated allusions and rich metaphors, so it develops the reader's thinking muscles and forces them to notice what is not revealed. From a large, complex, tangled thread, a single strand of thread is plucked, gently tugged, and revealed. Instead of a strong cry to the world or a rant of injustice, the author has the protagonist do what is most honest to his inner voice and himself, and that's how this novel is an indictment. The unconscious, which underpins consciousness, and our awareness and harmony with nature and the world, really lives when it is directed by the unconscious. it's great as a novel because it's about a world that people who write novels pay attention to. It's The in-between. The novelist's eye and the universe are in the in-between, the in-betweenness. If you describe its expression as just a small thing, just a small thing with no obvious substance. I think it is a novel that deals with such a place. Also, The character of the protagonist, his integrity and responsibility, his tragic flaws, and the subconscious roar that rises up when those flaws are connected to certain situations-The power it has to shatter a calm life in an instant-. In many ways, the archetypal aspects of the novel are in place. # Small tings The forces that drive our daily lives are survival, living, and culture. They are all human obligations. When triviality becomes a list of nouns, it becomes a reason to sustain the empty routine. Like a brand names. Meanwhile, there is another concept of small things. When triviality represents a state of mind or a behavior, its identity is fuzzy and usually has a"should be" look. It's the language of the unconscious. A Christmas scene with a couple raising their five daughters with all their best. The book is filled with little things: a long list of names that seems excessively long in light of the book's overall length; a baby Jesus lying in a manger in a Christmas nativity scene that is neither Joseph and Mary nor the wise men; a little girl petting a donkey because she thinks it's cute; the kind of feelings that are not explicitly labeled as shoulds and shouldn'ts; the little things that fulfill small needs, like the matchboxes in Ned's room. The title "Small things (like these)"suggests the extras that make up this world, but it also allows us to see the power and substance of triviality. The final scene, in which the protagonist, Furlong, holds the barefoot little girl's hand as he walks and he has a Christmas gift box of custum leather shoes, is a scene of reconciliation with his own repression. Furling is a man who has has been cusrous about who's his father throughout him upbringing, but somehow has never been able to ask the most curious and frightening question: the question of his father's existence. The little girl means his repression about his existance. The image of the little girl he felt in the Mother Superior's room was his own.

Definitely a worthy read and all the hype that came along with it. Short and to the point. Highly recommended

I am a retired English teacher who now reads for pleasure and our Book Club. This book is short and similar to a novella but it is mighty!! It was a finalist for the Booker Award 2022 and rightfully so. The writing is outstanding. The message is universal. The characters are chiseled and honed and the plot keeps you wanting more. The author's economy of words makes her sentence structure and prose appealing and pleasurable. Based on a true story, this book is unforgettable. I have given it as a gift to my teacher colleagues and chose it for our Book Club selection next month.

Verybinterestingreading

Das Buch ist super interessant.

Very good story

This is a beautiful book, a very easy quick read..the Subject matter is very sad and based on true events.. It made me feel very grateful for my life and reminded me that sadness happens and can be very cruel..love this author

This short work by Claire Keegan has the depth and expanse of a full-length novel. It is both highly literary and yet page-turningly readable. Hilary Mantel has said of Keegan’s prose that “Every word is the right word in the right place and the effect is resonant and deeply moving.” The creates a narrative of immediacy, one that is vividly alive and which, although set in the mid 1980s, appears to be unfolding moment by moment in real time, as it is read. The year is 1985 and Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant, employing a team of men in New Ross, a small town north of Dublin. A hard worker and devoted family man, Furlong keeps his business stable and just profitable during a time of economic upheaval, where business closures and redundancies are commonplace. But this is an Ireland in which the power of the Church still exerts a deep and pervasive hold. People know that all is not well with the young, unmarried mothers who are given refuge at The Good Shepherd Convent, yet they prefer to turn a blind eye, mindful of how falling out of favour with the Church could affect their lives and ruin their children’s futures. Furlong himself has experienced some of the ostracism that society and church place on these young women and their illegitimate children, for his own mother was unmarried. Yet he was one of the lucky ones, given a decent home and a stable upbringing. The warm and secure home life that Furlong has helped create for his wife and five girls is portrayed as essentially loving and dependable despite the ever-fluctuating tensions of work and life. While making a delivery to the Convent, Furlong happens upon a young girl locked in a coal shed. She is barefoot, terrified, and has been kept there for days, sitting among her own excrement. When confronted, the reaction of the Mother Superior is to treat the girl with luscious concern, sending her for a hot bath, welcoming her return in clean clothes. She feeds her fruit cake and hot tea, orders a full breakfast to be cooked for the girl. And she claims they have all been searching for her – why did she run off and hide? Furlong is unconvinced. On Christmas Eve, making a late delivery to the Convent, he finds the girl again locked in the shed. This time he takes her home with him. The book ends before the journey home is complete. Furlong knows what awaits him. The disapproval and censure of perhaps the whole town. His wife’s reaction not the least among these. His fear is overwhelming, yet he has never felt so elated, so sure that he is doing the right thing.