Small Things Like These (Oprah's Book Club)
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4.3 • 1.1K Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
**OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK 2024**
**NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB PICK 2024**
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY
A New York Times Bestseller • Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize • Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
The Irish Times Best Book of the 21st Century
"A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family
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.
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. This thought-provoking novel immerses us in the beauty and tragedy of its time and place.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Irish story writer Keegan's gorgeously textured second novella (after Foster) centers on a family man who wants to do the right thing. It's almost Christmas in a small town south of Dublin, Ireland, in 1985. Bighearted coal dealer Bill Furlong makes deliveries at all hours, buys dinner for his men, plays Santa Claus for the local children, and cares for his five daughters along with his wife, Eileen. Meanwhile, rumors circulate about the "training school" at a nearby convent, suggesting it's a front for free labor by young unwed mothers to support a laundry service, but no one wants to rock the boat. When Bill is there on a delivery, a teenage girl begs him to take her with him, and he politely makes excuses. He also notices broken glass topping the walls. Eileen tells him to "stay on the right side of people," but he feels he should do something—not just because he imagines his own daughters imprisoned there, but because he was born to a 16-year-old unwed mother who could have suffered a similar fate. Keegan beautifully conveys Bill's interior life as he returns to the house where he was raised ("Wasn't it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past... despite the upset"). It all leads to a bittersweet culmination, a sort of anti–Christmas Carol, but to Bill it's simply sweet. Readers will be touched.
Customer Reviews
Lovely short read
First book I've decided to read after a very long time and I enjoyed it a lot. An amazing and important read that I’d recommend to anyone.
Compelling
Could not put it down and that doesn’t often happen for me
The Cost of Decency
In Small Things Like These, bravery arrives late and without safety. Claire Keegan strips it of uplift and moral theatre. What remains is a decision that threatens livelihood, family and standing, taken without reassurance.
Bill Furlong is settled, tired, respectable. His life runs on repetition: work, home, weather, routine. That steadiness matters. The risk he takes is not symbolic. It comes with dependants and consequences that will not fall on him alone.
The book narrows the space for action. There is no exposure or public reckoning. Only a moment when continuing as before becomes impossible. The town survives through managed silence. Everyone knows enough. No one presses further.
Furlong’s wife voices the prevailing logic. Protect what you have. Do not invite scrutiny. The nuns are charitable. The girls are wayward. Her position is coherent and socially functional. Keegan makes it persuasive.
The conflict is not goodness versus cruelty. It is decency set against stability. Choosing the former fractures the arrangements that keep life workable.
Keegan’s prose compresses rather than urges. Cold, labour and small observation do the work. The novella’s tight length mirrors the narrow margin within which moral action exists.
What lingers is the cost. As Keegan writes, “Climbing the street towards his own front door with the barefooted girl and the box of shoes, his fear more than outweighed every other feeling but in his foolish heart he not only hoped but legitimately believed that they would manage.” The act does not close the wound it opens. It leaves life unsettled, arrangements broken, and consequences unresolved. This is what courage looks like once stability has been built.