Christmas is approaching and there’s a lot to do to get all his deliveries completed on time. But he’s stuck in a rut and is beginning to wonder what his life is all about. The story is set in Ireland in 1985, a period of economic deprivation and political instability, when “the young people were emigrating, leaving for London and Boston, New York”.īill Furlong is a hard-working coal merchant who is married with five young daughters. It’s a beautiful portrait of a man carrying out a small act of defiance against the Catholic Church at a time when it controlled almost every facet of Irish life. It’s written in Keegan’s typical economical prose, but addresses big themes and big emotions. Her latest book, Small Things Like These, is being marketed as a novel, but it’s only 73 pages in length and feels more like an extended short story. Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley.Ĭlaire Keegan is a well regarded Irish writer best known for her short stories, which include the collections Antarctica (1999) and Walk the Blue Fields (2007), and her novella Foster (2010), which you can read for free on the New Yorker website if you wish to get a feel for her writing. Fiction – Kindle edition Faber & Faber 73 pages 2021.
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