Title: Foster
Author: Claire Keegan
Title: Small Things Like These
Author: Claire Keegan
After our grueling battle with War and Peace last month, we opted to read two novellas by Irish author Claire Keegan. These two small books, each of which can be read in an afternoon, packs a powerful emotional punch. Keegan, whose work has been compared to that of Anton Chekhov and William Trevor, is spare with her sentences but generous with their meaning.
Foster's narrator, who is never named, is a little girl who is farmed out to people she doesn't know because her own family is impoverished and overwhelmed by too many children. Through her eyes, the reader sees what love and care look like to a child who is experiencing both for the first time.
Foster is now part of the school curriculum in Ireland.
Small Things Like These follows Bill Furlong, born to an unwed mother and now searching for meaning as a coal merchant with a wife and five daughters he adores. His quest exposes him to the hidden horror of the local Magdalen Laundry and brings him face to face with a terrible choice.
Small Things Like these was short-listed for the Booker Prize.
Insights and Opinions
+ Having read these two books together, we found ourselves comparing them. Small Things is less ambiguous than Foster in terms of what we think will happen after the last page. We know that things will go south for Furlong after he interferes with the Magdalen Laundry but we're not sure what will happen to the girl in Foster after her father returns. Will she leave with him and return home? Will she cling to Kinsella and stay where there is love and care? It's up to the reader to decide.
+ Linda rightly pointed out that these two books speak to each other. In Foster, Kinsella tells the girl "You don't ever have to say anything...Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing." In Small Things, Furlong says something, and now he will lose everything because he missed his opportunity to say nothing.
+ Both books are masterpieces of exquisite detail and the minutiae of Irish life. Keegan's artistry is humble and soft-spoken, never showy or grandiose. Small Things opens with a description of the town and the time of year..."chimneys threw out smoke which fell away and drifted off in hairy, drawn-out strings before dispersing along the quays, and soon the River Barrow, dark as stout, swelled up with rain." As the reader, you see it and feel it and want to clutch your coat a little closer.
+ Keegan's characters speak to each other but never about what they really mean. She skillfully captures the indirectness that hides a knife, conversations in which the words say one thing but the meaning is clearly something very different. Neighbors meet neighbors with pleasantries but then judge each other harshly behind each other's backs.
+ Some of us felt that Foster would be a wonderful novel. All the characters are there, the circumstances are in place, and there's so much more to tell. Then again, maybe we should just be happy with what Keegan has given us -- brief glimpses into Irish life where every word is important and the prose is poetry.
Happy Birthday to Us!
+ Turns out, we have now officially been a book club for 15 years! Linda should know, as book club formation was one of her last acts as Executive Director of The Loft Literary Center. Kindly, in addition to serving us a fabulous lunch, she provided a celebratory cake and we sang to ourselves before digging in. (Except for poor Chris, who was with us via Zoom).
+ As true archivists and lovers of all things book, we should have a complete record of what we've read on this blog, but we don't. The blog has only been around for 12 years. Things we read pre-blog are available for viewing on the Ancient History page, with descriptions thanks to Lois. But there were two years during which no blogging took place as this writer had faded from view. Word has it Margy keeps a record?
+ Anyway, congratulations everybody, for being such a fine group of excellent, smart people.
What's Coming Up
July: Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Ronan Hessian
August: The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
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