Small Things Like These
By Claire Keegan
Nominated, short listed for Man Booker 2022.
Published Year: 2021
Page Count: 67 pages
Medium Used: Kindle PW
Genre : Ireland, Contemporary Fiction, Historical fiction, Catholic Church, Convents,2025-read.
Rating : 4/5
This is a small book but has shed light on some very prominent yet overlooked issue of the 20th century Ireland. How young, unmarried, mostly teenage mothers and their bastard, unacknowledged children are treated by the mother-baby homes which are under the control of catholic church and Ireland state. They are clearly inhumane and a bit brutal. I don't know and can't imagine such cases existing in today's day and age as well.
Furlong is a devoted and hard working family man with a doting wife and five daughters. He works hard, day to night, to put food on the table and lead a debt free life. He accidentally finds out that a convent in his neighborhood run by nuns is actually a mother baby shelter and the living condition there are not wholesome. He was a bastard son to his teenage mom as well and his mother's employer took pity on her condition and raised Furlong as her own. Seeing these women and their children go through the hell he fortuitously escaped, he makes some startling decisions. What are those? A man, practical and with his head strong on his shoulders, why does he resort to such a step that would only attract objections and possible ridicule, gossip?
A few questions and irregularities that came to my mind as I finished reading this novellas are : How many poor women can this man rescue? And what about the child of the mother he is taking home? How is the church or the state benefitting from this arrangement of mom baby shelters and also from separating them or mistreating them? I am clueless as to how the children died under their care .. is it negligence the author is insinuating towards or is there something else much deeper, darker conspiracy going on?
Based on my understanding of the characters, I foresee a tussle with his wife because he is adding more mouths to feed to his already big family, on his modest income.
A worthy read.
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