Book Review: Small Things Like This by Claire Keegan

 

I would have never encounter Claire Keegan if not for her nomination for The Booker Prize. It is a pitty that our interest for books is so limited to what kind of sources of information we have, but at least it is much better than not having any source of information at all. No matter how biased some prizes may be in terms of geography and ideological choices, rarely I had the feeling of dealing with a bad choice. Especially for the works in translation outside the priviledged English-speaking realm, I will be for ever grateful for having discovered unique authors like Bora Chung. 

But I am not necessarily a throughout follower and extensive reader of the books on the Booker Prize list, as I have (way too) many other ways to select my next reads. However, I do have an old literary interest in books with a social layer, and eventually dealing with historical abuses. Arts and particularly literature amplify the voices of the oppressed and forgotten.

This is the case with the (unfortunatelly too) short novel by Irish author Claire Keegan Small Things Like These. It is based on an episode only lately revealed in the history of the Catholic Church in Ireland, mainly the infamous case of Magdalene laundries. 

A woman is discovered in a laundry, confused, asking about her lost baby. She is found by Furlong, a working class man born without knowing his father. The women working in the laundry were all labelled ´disturbed´ and of low morals by the rest of the inhabitants. Furlong´s encounter enchains not only his own memories, but also projections of ´what ifs´ and a more sensitive observation of the world around, the first trigger of critical thinking. 

Claire Keegan´s writing is precise, with the perfect economy of words targeting directly the element matching the story. All the pieces are coming along together and I can only regret that this episode is treated only so shortly. I would have expected a novel about it, but in the end, the choice of the form belongs to the author, as well as the success of its achievements is a matter of talent and deep knowledge of wording ways.

Rating: 4.5 stars