Small Things Like These (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
Small Things Like These is a pitch-perfect, powerful tale, moving and affecting, haunting in its moral clarity. With a single decisive act, a man rises above the ordinariness of his daily life to take a moral stance against complacency that is nothing short of extraordinary. As other writers have also acclaimed, “With clarity and lucidity” (Colm Toibin), “every word is the right word in the right place, the effect resonant and deeply moving” (Hilary Mantel), “in a hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time” (Lily King). Ed loved and highly recommends!
— EdDecember 2021 Indie Next List
“Claire Keegan works magic in this small novel about a truly good man in 1985 Ireland, and the difficult decision he faces at Christmastime. Keegan captures the extraordinary courage required to live an ordinary life with honor.”
— John Lynn, The Kennett Bookhouse, Kennett Square, PA
Description
Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
"A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." --Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.
About the Author
CLAIRE KEEGAN was raised on a farm in Ireland. Her stories have won numerous awards and are translated into more than twenty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and was chosen as a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster, after winning the Davy Byrnes Award--then the world's richest prize for a story--was recently selected by The Times UK as one of the top 50 novels to be published in the 21st century. Her stories have been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and Best American Stories. Keegan is now holding the Briena Staunton Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
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