Small Things Like These
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4.1 • 348 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The landmark new novel from award-winning author Claire Keegan
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This poignant work of historical fiction will transport you to the working classes of 1980s Ireland, where the Catholic Church creeps into all corners of everyday life—but isn’t necessarily a moral force. Rough-edged but generous Bill Furlong sells coal to put his daughters through religious school and secure a brighter future, but right next door he discovers the same nuns subjecting downtrodden women to horrifying abuse and finds himself in a serious dilemma. An emotionally deep story, Small Things Like These thoughtfully navigates questions of love, loyalty, and righteousness as it lays out Furlong’s complex ties with his family, community, and God. Those emotions are all heightened by author Claire Keegan’s portrayal of the town’s claustrophobic atmosphere, where criticizing the church means living as an outcast. Narrator Aidan Kelly delivers the saga in a gruff yet warm Irish accent that fits the multitudes of Furlong and the other characters. This thought-provoking novel immerses us in the beauty and tragedy of its time and place.
Customer Reviews
Like a Dickens’ Novella
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is a masterfully crafted novella set in a small Irish town during the Christmas season of 1985. At its heart is Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, whose quiet life and routine are upended when he discovers the harsh realities behind the local convent’s Magdalen laundry—a notorious institution where women and girls were incarcerated and forced into labor.
Keegan’s prose is deceptively simple yet deeply evocative, immersing readers in the rhythms of rural Irish life. Her language, polished and precise, reflects both the beauty and the bleakness of her characters’ world. Through Bill’s eyes, we witness the tension between individual conscience and the pressures of a community complicit in silence. Bill, himself the child of a single mother, is portrayed as an ordinary man whose compassion and moral courage quietly build throughout the story, culminating in an act of defiance that is both understated and profound.
The novella draws clear parallels to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but instead of focusing on material redemption, Keegan explores spiritual and moral awakening. Bill’s internal struggle—whether to maintain the status quo or risk everything to do what is right—serves as a powerful indictment of the societal and religious structures that enabled the abuses of the Magdalen laundries.
Despite its brevity, the novel is rich in emotional depth. The domestic warmth of Bill’s home life is sharply contrasted with the institutional cruelty he uncovers, heightening the stakes of his moral dilemma. Keegan’s restraint in depicting the horrors of the laundries makes the story all the more chilling, relying on suggestion and the weight of what is left unsaid to convey the suffering endured by the women and girls.
Small Things Like These is both a damning portrait of Ireland’s recent past and a celebration of everyday decency. It is a story about the cost of kindness, the courage to act against injustice, and the hope that small acts can make a difference—even when the world would rather look away. This novella is a stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity, recommended for anyone drawn to literary fiction that finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Small Things … speak volumes.
Packaged with literary elegance, readers receive a thoughtful Christmas message.
Straight up beautiful
Gentle yet relentless, this short gem of a novel explores what it takes- and what it might cost- to do right. Set in a village in Ireland, the writing is narrated so well and unpretentiously, that the listener feels like he/she is breathing the same air as the central character.