Helpful Score: 2
...There but for the grace of God, go I...
The power of the Catholic Church has always cloaked Irish society. Priests and bishops dictated when one's path led to heaven and when it led to damnation. Claustrophobic restrictions governed what was acceptable and what was shameful. Authority is not questioned when infallibility is the ace in the hole. No one argues with God in the confession booth.
The Magdalene Laundry saga is a horrible chapter in Irish history. Unwed mothers, fallen women, any unacceptable females were sent there to be removed from society. Arrangements were made to adopt out the illegitimate babies while the women were hidden, mistreated and brutalized... free labor, all.
In "Small Things Like These", Bill Furlong is the hardworking father of five girls who supports his family by running his own coal supply company. It is Christmas time and the season has him reflecting on his own identity. Bill's mother was unwed, he never knew who his father was, and he realizes how fortunate he had been that his mother's employer, Mrs. Wilson, took part in raising him when his mother died. He still had to deal with the scorn and ridicule of a tarnished past, but he was able to earn a good life for his family.
On the eve of Christmas Bill has to make a delivery to the Magdalene Laundry and Training School in town. The cruelty he stumbles onto there shakes his faith to the core. The Mother Superior confronts him and pressures him to accept that everything is fine, reminding him that nothing happening in the school affects him or his family. Back at home his wife tells him there are just some things in life we have to ignore to stay on the right side of people. Can Bill ignore what his conscience calls on him to do?
So many things come to mind when reading a work like this. We know what happens when the guilty are indulged because of the repercussions invoked by calling them out. The Holocaust and other ethnic cleansings are the most blatant cases. North America has its own versions seen in recent discoveries of indigenous mass graves outside of "residential boarding schools" in Canada and the United States. How far off is the subject of detention centers filled with incarcerated immigrant children?
Author Claire Keegan has written a brilliant tale illuminating a disgraceful institution allowed to plague Irish life for over 200 years. Five stars, an excellent examination of an individual wrestling with what he is told to do versus what his heart tells him. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
"Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries" -- Joni Mitchell / "The Magdalene Laundries"
The power of the Catholic Church has always cloaked Irish society. Priests and bishops dictated when one's path led to heaven and when it led to damnation. Claustrophobic restrictions governed what was acceptable and what was shameful. Authority is not questioned when infallibility is the ace in the hole. No one argues with God in the confession booth.
The Magdalene Laundry saga is a horrible chapter in Irish history. Unwed mothers, fallen women, any unacceptable females were sent there to be removed from society. Arrangements were made to adopt out the illegitimate babies while the women were hidden, mistreated and brutalized... free labor, all.
In "Small Things Like These", Bill Furlong is the hardworking father of five girls who supports his family by running his own coal supply company. It is Christmas time and the season has him reflecting on his own identity. Bill's mother was unwed, he never knew who his father was, and he realizes how fortunate he had been that his mother's employer, Mrs. Wilson, took part in raising him when his mother died. He still had to deal with the scorn and ridicule of a tarnished past, but he was able to earn a good life for his family.
On the eve of Christmas Bill has to make a delivery to the Magdalene Laundry and Training School in town. The cruelty he stumbles onto there shakes his faith to the core. The Mother Superior confronts him and pressures him to accept that everything is fine, reminding him that nothing happening in the school affects him or his family. Back at home his wife tells him there are just some things in life we have to ignore to stay on the right side of people. Can Bill ignore what his conscience calls on him to do?
So many things come to mind when reading a work like this. We know what happens when the guilty are indulged because of the repercussions invoked by calling them out. The Holocaust and other ethnic cleansings are the most blatant cases. North America has its own versions seen in recent discoveries of indigenous mass graves outside of "residential boarding schools" in Canada and the United States. How far off is the subject of detention centers filled with incarcerated immigrant children?
Author Claire Keegan has written a brilliant tale illuminating a disgraceful institution allowed to plague Irish life for over 200 years. Five stars, an excellent examination of an individual wrestling with what he is told to do versus what his heart tells him. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
"Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries" -- Joni Mitchell / "The Magdalene Laundries"
Helpful Score: 1
Great literature makes the reader think. As I read the last sentences, my mind was racing forward to what Bill Furlong's wife would say, what the townspeople would say, and, finally, why didn't the author tell us more? After careful analysis, Claire Keegan ended the story there so readers could put themselves into the picture and evaluate their willingness to chance to do what was right. Brilliant.
This is a little gem of a story. It is long enough to cover the subject and short enough to leave unanswered questions. This gives the reader a front-row seat in the decision-making.
Bill Furlong's meager beginnings play a significant role in his decisions. Those beginnings are what give Bill the gumption to do what is right. At first, I worried about how Bill would explain his actions to his wife. However, I remembered a regular refrain in the book, "Bill, is something bothering you?" As close couples often do, they sense when something is happening within their partner. I suspect Eileen knew Bill was troubled and begged him to give voice to it. Instead, Bill acted.
This is a little gem of a story. It is long enough to cover the subject and short enough to leave unanswered questions. This gives the reader a front-row seat in the decision-making.
Bill Furlong's meager beginnings play a significant role in his decisions. Those beginnings are what give Bill the gumption to do what is right. At first, I worried about how Bill would explain his actions to his wife. However, I remembered a regular refrain in the book, "Bill, is something bothering you?" As close couples often do, they sense when something is happening within their partner. I suspect Eileen knew Bill was troubled and begged him to give voice to it. Instead, Bill acted.
A beautiful, pitch-perfect novella.
Every character is beautifully sketched in, from Bill Furlong (oooh, love that name ...) himself, his wife Eileen and his five beautiful daughters, right down to the tiniest walk on parts, and even the ghosts at the fringes of the story-- Bill's mother, Mrs Wilson, his patroness and the protector of his unwed mother, Ned the handyman, who may be more to Bill than he has heretofore realized ... each and every one is a character.
Lovingly crafted, every word and phrase carrying deep narrative and thematic significance. I'm not sure that there are many authors who could make a walk through a small Irish town, in the darkness of early evening on Christmas Eve, resonate with the terrible weight of ethical choices that have to be made, that will change the rest of your life, and that of your family.
Sense of place? ohmygosh, welcome to small-town Ireland. It's 1985, but it could be 1935, or 1835. I heard, and saw, my own family and my own family's dilemmas, in every single character. (Welcome to small-town anywhere, actually -- the tragedy of the Magdalen Laundries is Ireland's unique shame -- but show me any country that doesn't have its own "Magdalen Laundry". None of us should sit smugly, and judge here.)
And it doesn't hurt that the situation of Bill Furlong's personal and ethical dilemma is enough to make anyone with a heart in their body react in a white-heat of rage.
Usually, I mark fine phrases with little stickers, but if I'd done that that with this book, it would have been bristling, and I would have run out of stickers: here's something, just completely at random ...
"With a fresh type of reluctance, he then changed into his Sunday clothes and walked with Eileen and the girls to the chapel, feeling the pavement steep and very slippery in places."
Oh, yes, indeed it is.
Every character is beautifully sketched in, from Bill Furlong (oooh, love that name ...) himself, his wife Eileen and his five beautiful daughters, right down to the tiniest walk on parts, and even the ghosts at the fringes of the story-- Bill's mother, Mrs Wilson, his patroness and the protector of his unwed mother, Ned the handyman, who may be more to Bill than he has heretofore realized ... each and every one is a character.
Lovingly crafted, every word and phrase carrying deep narrative and thematic significance. I'm not sure that there are many authors who could make a walk through a small Irish town, in the darkness of early evening on Christmas Eve, resonate with the terrible weight of ethical choices that have to be made, that will change the rest of your life, and that of your family.
Sense of place? ohmygosh, welcome to small-town Ireland. It's 1985, but it could be 1935, or 1835. I heard, and saw, my own family and my own family's dilemmas, in every single character. (Welcome to small-town anywhere, actually -- the tragedy of the Magdalen Laundries is Ireland's unique shame -- but show me any country that doesn't have its own "Magdalen Laundry". None of us should sit smugly, and judge here.)
And it doesn't hurt that the situation of Bill Furlong's personal and ethical dilemma is enough to make anyone with a heart in their body react in a white-heat of rage.
Usually, I mark fine phrases with little stickers, but if I'd done that that with this book, it would have been bristling, and I would have run out of stickers: here's something, just completely at random ...
"With a fresh type of reluctance, he then changed into his Sunday clothes and walked with Eileen and the girls to the chapel, feeling the pavement steep and very slippery in places."
Oh, yes, indeed it is.
