Small Things Like These

Keegan is primarily a short story writer, and this novella showcases her surgical precision. A spare accounting of the moral dilemma faced by an Irish tradesman and father in the mid 80s, Small Things Like These efficiently paints its small town scene and illustrates its characters’ daily lives. Ultimately I thought the moral quandary could have been explored more deeply by centering a more conflicted character, but this book made me want to read more by this author.

How will a man measure the cost of saving an abused young woman when the power of an institution has hushed the voice of so many for so long? Threats of reprisals, loss of one’s place in the community, relationships, business that supports a family of seven. Where is the line between what one owes to the oppressed and what one must ask himself, his family, to suffer for breaking a pattern of tacit collusion, for coming to the aid of those with no voice? He had found joy in the small things his young girls did, proud that they were his, lucky, he said. But his life was losing meaning as he measured his safe, patterned days. The fitting in, keeping one’s head down. Memories of his own reprieve, the one soul who saved him and his mother echoed the debt he owned to others like him, weaker others who needed the help of someone with a stiff moral spine. This story is a challenge to all of us at a time when kindness, bravery, and self sacrifice are so desperately needed.

The spareness of the prose made the moral of the story and the guilt of the whole community all the more striking

Very short and poignant story about Ireland and a man and the Catholics.

Good read for cultural history and moral beauty.