Slim novel a tale of quiet heroism

Small Things Like These is a gem of a slim novel about a family man faced with a moral decision.

In 114 pages, the book introduces us to Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in a small Irish town. “Furlong had come from nothing,” writes Keegan. His mother was 16 when he was born after the Second World War and he never knew his father. They survived thanks to the kindness of his mother’s employer, a wealthy widow with household staff.

Furlong is a father of five, stuck in a rut. Up before the sun rises to supervise work at the coal yard, he lies in bed with his wife after the end of each day, going over things that need doing or sharing bits of gossip he picked up during his deliveries. It’s that simple act that gives the novel its title: “Some nights, Furlong lay there with Eileen, going over small things like these,” writes Keegan.

But the smallest of things often have much bigger implications, as readers soon learn. Delivering coal one day to the local convent, Furlong happens upon “more than a dozen young women and girls, down on their hands and knees with tins of oldfashioned lavender polish and rags, polishing their hearts out in circles on the floor.” “Mister, won’t you help us?” asks one of the girls, whose “hair had been roughly cut, as though someone blind had taken to it with shears.” The encounter affects Furlong deeply and the latter half of the novel finds him reflecting on his own upbringing as he builds toward his decision. Will he help?

The book takes just an hour or so to read, but you still feel like you know Bill Furlong by the end and understand why he does what he does. His tale of quiet heroism doesn’t require any more words.