Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is lovely. A short – novella? – novel that follows Furlong, the small town coal-delivery man as he discovers truths both of his own past and of the horrors of the Catholic “mother and baby homes.” When Furlong discovers a young woman being held captive in a coal shed the nuns who have kept her there implicitly threaten to deny Furlong’s own daughters access to the Church-run school. Furlong must then decide between preserving the goodwill of the Church for his own family and rescuing – at least one – of these trapped women. Complicating his choice is Furlong’s status as a bastard himself, raised to ‘goodness’ through the mercy of a wealthy woman who allowed his own mother to stay with her despite her ‘fallen’ status.
What, the book asks, should we be willing to give up for a just cause? What personal sacrifice do we owe when institutional harm and state violence is being wreaked upon the innocent? How can we imagine ourselves inherently good or worthy or kind when so much of what we are and what we have owes to chance and circumstance? And so, with the privilege we do hold, what moral obligation do we have to use this privilege well?
For Furlong this is a question pondered by the fire with a decision that he recognizes as implicating those he loves best and. For the reader these are the questions that are not – as historical fiction always reminds us – of the past, but urgently present.
It is an excellent read and one offered on St. Patrick’s day for its very certain setting. Oh and to let you know it was adapted for TV with Cillian Murphy starring, so you know, that’s also a good reason to read it.
Literary Vice 