Small Things Like These

"How still it was up here but why was it not ever peaceful? The day had not yet dawned, and Furlong looked down at the dark shining river whose surface reflected equal parts of the lighted town. So many things had a way of looking finer, when they were not so close."

There is a convent in the town, that looks pretty fine from a distance, but houses a Magdalene laundry that the Irish townspeople don't talk much about. Bill Furlong, the coal merchant has lived a life defined by small things: some good, some bad, some comforting, some routine. When he goes to the convent a couple of days before Christmas to deliver coal, he inadvertently comes across a shivering, coatless, and barefoot young girl locked in the coal shed. Suddenly he is confronted with a big thing and his life is upended.

Keegan's sleight of hand is evidenced by the vast amount of detail and meaning packed into this little, 114 page book. She explores what happens when an ordinary person is confronted with extraordinary circumstances that involve a life changing decision, and why some of us can rise to the occasion and some of us can't. Focus is given to the importance of family and to the wonder to be found in the routine when it can be carried out in peace and safety.

And Bill Furlong is one of the best dads ever to appear in any fiction I've read. He movingly tells his little daughter Loretta that she doesn't have to talk to Santa if she doesn't want to, honoring her fear instead of pushing her forward and telling her not to be afraid as most parents would. He is solicitous towards his wife and kind to people in the town. It's rare to have a positive male dad, husband, and neighbor character in a novel, and although he may be a bit too good to be true at times, he mostly made me genuinely like him. This book happens over a few days at Christmas, and it deserves to become a Christmas classic because it really gets to the bottom of what makes us human.

I changed my rating because after this second read for my book discussion, I can say that the beauty and wisdom of Small Things Like These is just awesome.

Let's be honest: this is a short story.

The piece only has one drawn out character who faces one decision when the decision is made the piece is over. All the other characters are small things: two-dimensional stock, stereotypical. There's no real subplot, he wonders about his father, mother, and his girls but there's no action there.

The first 39 pages establish the character. The next 10 introduce the problem, the "convent". The piece is only 115 pages. The character approaches convent three times and makes his decision on Christmas eve. It’s like a long short story in structure.

This decision was a small thing for him. There's a thread that the character is different because he was raised by a matronly Protestant. He’s portrayed as having Protestant values not Catholic. The book is set in 1985, 15 years after the post Vatican 2 mass was imposed and so when the author incorporates some of that liturgy it falls flat of the mystery, fear, and authority the traditional Latin Mass had. By 1985 the church has a rockstar Pope, who’s also referenced in the piece, and a cupcakes, rainbows, and all dogs go to heaven theology. 1962 would have been a better year, but the county was not a theocracy or hotbed of fundamentalism at point in the last century. The author still tries to overlay the qualities of the pre-VC2 church on this 1985 setting, but falls short.

So going against the Catholic Church for someone with Protestant values in 1985 isn't that hard. There’s no dark night of the soul, just some small things that trouble him. His main concern is his business. He runs the only heating supply business in the village, business has never been better. The Irish Catholics I know wouldn’t go without heat because they disapproved of the personal decisions the owner made. Will his decision hurt his girls socially? The piece infers that they may better immigrating anyway. His fears seem irrational.

A more developed piece would provide (show) an example of someone making a decision that cuts against the church and then paying for it. That way the stakes are legitimately high at least according to the internal logic of the story. To hang it all on a supposedly commonly held perception that the church is an all powerful institution that excels at retribution doesn’t work.

So the end feels predictable what his decision will be on Christmas Eve. There’s no question over right or wrong, but whether to do or to not. Finally, there’s a bit of "The Gift of the Magi,” which feels sentimental in 2022.

I didn't find that the writing vividly or hauntingly described the horror of the Magdalen houses. The piece only gives a male outsider perspective. Contemporary literary writing is often criticized for its lack of passion. This is contemporary literary writing.

I didn’t think the piece was iconoclastic. Any one who had any authority in 1985 is most likely dead. The Magdalen houses closed by 1997. Ireland legalized abortion in 2018. Tearing up this questionably reconstructed historical image of "Catholic Ireland" isn't as "powerful and affecting and very timely" as Sinead O'Connor on SNL tearing up JP2 in 1992. Like O’Connor, a powerful, affecting, and timely piece would speak the truth to the current power on a pressing issue.

Keegan's a qualified writer and an emerging star. I liked her short story in The New Yorker, So Late in the Day, it was one of the best short stories in that magazine this year. This is a nice piece of writing. My main objection is how it is marketed. I don't think it's prize worthy or a novel, but her work will continue to make the rounds.