'Small Things Like These' add up to a seismic change in 1980s Ireland
In Claire Keegan's feminist take on Dickens, a boy born to an unwed teen builds a life as a coal merchant, husband, and father to five daughters, and faces crises of faith and conscience.
Bill Furlong, Claire Keegan's unforgettable protagonist in Small Things Like These, makes his giant leap from a series of measured steps. The idea of seemingly insignificant gestures, which — "when added up, amount to a life" — aligns beautifully with the meaning of his last name. Furlong means "furrow length" — the distance of one-eighth of a mile that a team of oxen could plough without resting.
While Keegan dedicates to "the women and children who suffered time
