Summary
Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These is a historical fiction novella published in 2021. Set in a rural Irish town in 1985 during the weeks leading up to Christmas, the book follows a coal and timber merchant named Bill Furlong. Keegan dedicates this story "to the women and children who suffered time in Ireland's mother and baby homes and Magdalen laundries" and to her teacher Mary McCray. (While Keegan uses the spelling "Magdalen," the institutions are generally referred to as "Magdalene laundries," and this latter spelling will be used throughout this guide except when quoting the text directly.) Following this dedication, Keegan includes an excerpt from the 1916 "Proclamation of the Irish Republic" concerning "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens." This section of the proclamation also specifically emphasizes "cherishing all of the children of the nation equally."
The book is organized into seven unnamed chapters, the first of which situates the story in the town of New Ross, Ireland. The yellow trees of autumn later get stripped bare by long November winds. People endure the cold and rainy weather in a state of drudgery as they go about their daily routines at the town's shops, post office, markets, bingo hall, and pubs. The weather serves as a primary topic of public conversation. Children pull their hoods up before going to school while their mothers struggle to dry laundry on clotheslines. Night brings bitterly cold temperatures that "cut the knees off those who still [kneel] to say the rosary."
Keegan introduces the main character, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant. Furlong comments that he may need to replace the wheels on his company's truck, which is used for transport and delivery. The cold weather augments the orders that Furlong receives from customers. He makes the deliveries alone as the men he hires work to "collect, carry, sort, and weigh" the coal as well as to "split the loads of felled trees." This hard labor is interrupted only for mealtimes at a local family-owned diner.
Analysis
In her novella Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan combines a complex character study with a historical narrative of Ireland's treatment of unmarried mothers. Although the novella deals with the existence of Magdalene laundries in Ireland, in interviews Keegan has stated that the laundries are not the novella's central focus. Instead, she considers the book to be "about love," specifically how the main character's own upbringing influences his choices. Regardless, the book begins with a dedication to the women and children who suffered in Ireland's Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes. Magdalene laundries (also called Magdalene asylums) were religious institutions that purportedly sheltered women who became pregnant out of wedlock or young girls whose families could not support them. However, these institutions largely operated as penitentiary workhouses that ostracized and exploited women by forcing them to work in punishing conditions. Many people argue that the Catholic Church and the Irish state colluded in creating these institutions.
Like their mothers, the children who grew up in the mother-and-baby homes suffered trauma, abuse, neglect, and social condemnation. Following her dedication, Keegan employs a kind of national verbal irony by including an excerpt from the "The Proclamation of the Irish Republic" that ascribes equality to all Irish citizens. This document claims that the Irish Republic "[cherishes] all of the children of the nation equally," which is incongruous with the way that children born out of wedlock were treated (alongside their mothers) as second-class citizens. Issues of shame, secrecy, and morality on the levels of both the individual and the collective thus underlie Small Things Like These.
Keegan bestows an active quality onto nature in the opening paragraphs of the first chapter. The November winds blow strongly and strip the trees bare, and the "frosts [take] hold" in violent ways as "blades of cold [slide] under doors." People have to "[face]" the cold, characterizing it as separate from and disagreeable to humans. This evokes a strong sense of place which is further bolstered by the lists of locations where networks of gossip weave through the town.
The author reveals a great deal about the town's inhabitants in this first chapter. The weather is the central topic of public discussion, and people ask "what was in it." This hints at a religious presence in this community. This presence is confirmed in the descriptions of people kneeling to say the rosary and organizing their day according to the Angelus bell. The fact that women rely on a clothesline to dry laundry also demonstrates that manual labor is normal both in and outside the home. Work is divided according to gender, with women portrayed in this chapter doing laundry and cooking while men work in the coal and timber industry or on boats. The main character, Bill Furlong, manages his coal and timber-selling business.
Keegan uses colloquial language and phrasing to paint a portrait of New Ross. At the local family-owned diner ("Kehoes"), Mrs. Kehoe uses the idiom "The empty sack cannot stand" to convey the need to eat and replenish energy. Hiberno-English (the name for Irish English) is greatly influenced by the Irish language.
The novella is written in the third person past tense, which creates a sense of distance and opens the possibility for reflection. Since Bill Furlong's environment is overshadowed by a scandal in Irish history, the use of past tense prompts readers to both consider this public case of widespread abuse and to reflect on their own moral values in the present and how they will evaluate the events of the narrative.
