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_askthebookbug 's review for:
Small Things Like These
by Claire Keegan
I first read about Magdalene Laundries sometime early last year when I read Sue Lloyd-Robert’s The War on Women. In between 18th to 20th century, Ireland had a place to send the so-called ‘fallen women’. Family members and others used to drop off young women who were either pregnant out of wedlock or had conceived due to sexual abuse. Slowly other girls joined the asylum and they grew in numbers. This place was run by the Roman Catholic Church where sisters worked the girls to death. They were denied of basic amenities and healthcare. Finally, after decades in 2013, a formal apology was issued by the government with a financial compensation package. This whole situation has always infuriated me and when I knew that Claire’s book was based on this laundry house, I was very intrigued to read it.
Our protagonist is a quiet man named Bill Furlong who is a local timber merchant in 1985, in Ireland. He doesn’t desire luxury but merely wants his wife and five daughters to be happy and content. He loves them dearly. But one day while delivering timber to the convent, he sees something that he shouldn’t have. A young lady in filthy clothes and barefoot, lying in the cold. He suddenly thinks of all the rumours he has heard of the convent. That how this place is just a front for the brutal laundry business for unwed mothers. Now, Bill himself was born to an unwed 16 year old woman and wonders what would have happened if his mother didn’t have the support of the kind Mrs Wilson.
And so Bill has a dilemma to solve, a question of morality. This novella, captures the plight of a regular man’s heart as he struggles to do the right thing. This book is a force to be reckoned with and Claire writes so beautifully, in such less pages. I was captivated until the very end and when I put the book down, I did so with a very satisfied sigh.
My second book of the year and I loved it immensely. I highly recommend it.
Our protagonist is a quiet man named Bill Furlong who is a local timber merchant in 1985, in Ireland. He doesn’t desire luxury but merely wants his wife and five daughters to be happy and content. He loves them dearly. But one day while delivering timber to the convent, he sees something that he shouldn’t have. A young lady in filthy clothes and barefoot, lying in the cold. He suddenly thinks of all the rumours he has heard of the convent. That how this place is just a front for the brutal laundry business for unwed mothers. Now, Bill himself was born to an unwed 16 year old woman and wonders what would have happened if his mother didn’t have the support of the kind Mrs Wilson.
And so Bill has a dilemma to solve, a question of morality. This novella, captures the plight of a regular man’s heart as he struggles to do the right thing. This book is a force to be reckoned with and Claire writes so beautifully, in such less pages. I was captivated until the very end and when I put the book down, I did so with a very satisfied sigh.
My second book of the year and I loved it immensely. I highly recommend it.