Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan's 2021 novella, Small Things Like These, was another book that cropped up in a high place during the Radio National book countdown. I've come to realise that most of the books that came in high on that list were books that had been made into films or TV series, which I guess raised their profile, but which has disappointed me slightly! (A notable exception to this observation is Richard Flanagan's Question 7, which I think would be impossible to film.) I wasn't aware of the film of Small Things Like These either, but now I'm tempted to check it out.

Keegan's book is barely even a novella, it's practically a long short story, only just over 100 pages (with generous spacing). However, it is, as Hilary Mantel claims on the cover, exquisite. It follows Bill Furlong, who runs a coal and timber yard, who's raised himself from 'nothing,' ie illegitimacy, and is now himself the father of five cherished daughters. He delivers coal to the convent on the hill, where behind locked doors unfortunate girls live as virtual slaves; he's haunted by what he witnesses, and ultimately finds it in his heart to show compassion to one of these poor outcasts. All this doesn't happen in medieval times, or even in the Victorian era -- we are in Ireland in the 1980s. But it's a time that might as well be hundreds of years ago, crushed by the iron fist of the church's power.

Claire Keegan packs a lot into her hundred pages. You could just about read it at a sitting; and you should.