Small Things Like These
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
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4.1 • 151 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
** A Book of the Year in The Times - The New Statesman - Observer - Financial Times - Irish Times - Irish Independent - Times Literary Supplement **
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY
WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE AND THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE AND THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARDS
'Exquisite.' Damon Galgut
'Masterly.' The Times
'Miraculous.' Herald
'Astonishing.' Colm Tóibín
'Stunning.' Sunday Independent
'Absolutely beautiful.' Douglas Stuart
It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.
Customer Reviews
Significant things.
Heartfelt story that is touching and moving. Only short but ticks many boxes.
Tear jerker
The author is Irish, has published several critically acclaimed short fiction collections and won a slew of literary prizes (Francis MacManus Award; William Trevor Prize; Olive Cook Award; Los Angeles Times Book of the Year; Rooney Prize for Literature, Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award). Her novella Foster (2010) was adapted for film as The Quiet Girl (2022). This one is shortlisted for the Booker in 2022.
The setting is a small Irish village just before Christmas 1985. The protagonist Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, is a good family man who makes an unfortunate discovery that could destroy the life he has built for his family, but doesn’t. The Catholic Church gets a hammering.
Graceful prose with some superb turns of phrase. Comparisons have been made to the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Call me a grinch, but I don’t think it will bear re-reading as often or as well as Dickens’s Christmas Carol.