BookLife Reviews: Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan

Ireland, Christmas, family, orphans, single parents, neglect, hope, kindness

Just 70 pages. A nugget. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is like an expertly distilled reduction sauce, a diamond that was perfected after eons underground. It fits in the pocket of a single sitting but it slices open a distinct world. 

Billy, a father of five girls, grew up without an identified father in late mid-century Ireland. When his unwed mother became pregnant, she was taken in by the woman for whom she worked, and he grew up there. Billy works hard running a coal and wood yard, delivering fuel to most of the inhabitants and small businesses in his village. The village includes a gated and unwelcoming convent and a Catholic girls school. 

The convent is known to house unwed mothers. Because of his own history, Billy is drawn to it. Things he observes at the convent and school raise questions. Billy is unafraid to ask them, and to continue asking when met with cold silence. No spoilers here, but the specificity of Christmas in a time of hardship and in the face of stark misfortune sets the stage for Billy’s deeply satisfying moral and spiritual journey into darkness, and back. This small story says so very much.