Small Things Like These

SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A 500-PIECE FARM PUZZLE ALREADY.

Pretty devastating! No one pairs sadness, hope, and resilience quite like the Irish.

Bill Furlong has come a long way in life. He is surrounded by stability and family in ways far different to his upbringing. Then one day while delivering coal to a convent just before Christmas, he stumbles into a secret. Really, the dark underbelly of an open secret, the sort that perpetually swirls in small town rumors but that is difficult to pin down or do anything about because of who holds power.

Furlong finds himself torn. He doesn't wish to jeopardize all he has by rocking the boat. At the same time, what he's witnessed needles him because of where he came from. The many church services surrounding a Christ-centered celebration complicate this moral tug-of-war. The kind of dissonance felt when the people we look to for spiritual guidance, instead cause us faith crises with their conduct.

I have a very low threshold for adult male protagonist ennui (and that's feminism), but Claire Keegan is a beautiful writer. Despite the short page count, the pacing feels slow as Furlong mulls over his options and memories. It ends at the perfect moment, resolute but open-ended. The audiobook is exquisitely done.

Keegan has captured the ambivalence of the winter holiday season so well. The colorful joy of giving and gathering, but also how traditions start to feel like chores you are falling behind on as the season marches on, animals struggling to find comfort in the cold dark terrain, the heavy sadness about loved ones who are not there anymore or how previous Christmases compare.

I want to read a lot more Keegan, but probably not for a second while I recover from this one.