Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan)

 This book won the Booker prize in 2022. The screen adaptation is released to rave reviews and it has a stellar cast, with Cillian Murphy playing the lead role. I wanted to read the book before watching it, because, as readers will always say, the book is always better than the movie!

As books go, this is a little book - at just 110 pages with font size 12 (at least, i have not measured it) it is something you can read in an hour. It could actually be just the first two chapters of a large book of 800 pages. But that is not a criticism. That, in fact, is praise for the book - in the length that other books take, to establish the premise and introduce us to the characters, this book tells us the whole story. 

It is a simple story of a man who loves his wife and 5 daughters, has hopes and dreams for them, has goodness in his heart, recognizes that though life deals unfair cards to many of us, but what we do with those cards depends on us. But also that however bad your cards are, there are others who have been dealt worse for no fault of theirs. In going through the motions of life, he also slips into reverie of what else could be, how else could it be and who else could it have been with. We have a peek into only a few days of his life, but that is enough for us to feel like we know him, because haven’t we wondered the same as we go about our daily mundane lives? 

In his effort to finish his deliveries and take a break for Christmas, he drives to the convent on the far side of the town. There he finds something strange, something not right, something he could brush aside like everyone else seems to be doing, and go about his life. He tries to, and others slyly advise him to, but will he be able to do it? What if it was one of his daughters? Though as his wife reminds him, it isn’t one of his daughters and so he needn’t really bother. It isn’t his daughter, but what if it was?

The story ends with Furlong simply taking a small step that will open a can of worms and force everyone to take their heads out of the sand and face the reality of what is happening in their town. While i would like for the story to proceed and to see Furlong displaying heroism, I understand why Keegan left it there. As it stands now, any of us could have done what he did - it doesn’t need us to be heroic or pull of stunts or face bullets. It just expects us to be decent people. Will we have the courage though?