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.
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| Claire Keegan |
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.
