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A review by aaronjchase
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
5.0
The book is a powerful literary fiction work set in Ireland. At its core, it is about ordinary kindness and how treating others with kindness begets more kindness in those around us. Bill Furlong (our protagonist) shows us that morality and kindness are taught through how we are treated and raised.. and not by the existence of organized religion in one’s life.
Bill is a quiet hero. Bill’s kindness borne out of ordinary circumstances (his treatment by his mother and his caretaker juxtaposes against the crimes of religious influence in Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. On top of that, the community itself outside of Bill are complicit through silence in the mistreatment and wrongdoing of the church. This line runs throughout the book, particularly in the logical inconsistencies and hypocrisy of churchgoers in the community who will scoff at helping the homeless while remaining committed to regularly paying tithe in the offering plate at weekly mass. It is a warning against the harm one allows to transpire by remaining complicit through silence, and in blind trust to religion as the objective beacon of morality and ethics.
Bill is a quiet hero. Bill’s kindness borne out of ordinary circumstances (his treatment by his mother and his caretaker juxtaposes against the crimes of religious influence in Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. On top of that, the community itself outside of Bill are complicit through silence in the mistreatment and wrongdoing of the church. This line runs throughout the book, particularly in the logical inconsistencies and hypocrisy of churchgoers in the community who will scoff at helping the homeless while remaining committed to regularly paying tithe in the offering plate at weekly mass. It is a warning against the harm one allows to transpire by remaining complicit through silence, and in blind trust to religion as the objective beacon of morality and ethics.