Irish writer Claire Keegan seems to be having a moment these days, at least in the bookish circles in which I travel. Her novella Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize, awarded for the finest work of literature published in English, and it won several other awards including the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year.

At just over 100 pages, the story follows Bill Furlong, “the coal and timber merchant” as he goes about his daily rounds in New Ross. It is 1985, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and Bill, married father of five daughters, is in an introspective mood. He is aware of his humble beginnings: “Furlong had come from nothing” and he is also aware of his relative success – he owns his business and is able to provide for his family and he feels “a deep, private joy that these children were his own.” He is aware that in some ways he is an outsider: his mother was an unwed teen and he grew up in a large house under the care of his mother’s employer, Mrs. Wilson, a widowed Protestant. He doesn’t know who his father is. He thinks about this sometimes as he also considers the daily grind of life, but ultimately Furlong seems to be a glass half full sort of bloke.

Before long, he caught a hold of himself and concluded that nothing ever did happen again; to each was given days and chances which wouldn’t come back around. And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.

A delivery to the local convent shakes something loose in Furlong, though. He grapples with what makes someone good and how can one be truly good if they turn a blind eye.

Small Things Like These is a essentially about one good man’s defiant act. It is a quiet, beautiful novella.