This is a short, sharp book, able to be read in one sitting, although it will benefit from rereading multiple times. Keegan herself has said that the book is twice as long as it looks because it needs to be reread.
Cathal works in finance in Dublin for the Arts sector. He knows the price of items but questions their value. From the first page, it’s evident that something has happened to Cathal to put him on edge. He can’t concentrate on his work; he doesn’t want to engage with his colleagues; and his boss tells him that he can leave early if he wants. He eventually takes the bus home to Arklow.
The following chapter loops back to when he met Sabine at a conference in Toulouse. She has a French father and English mother – the cultural differences foreshadow other discrepancies in their characters. Sabine begins to spend time with Cathal. Eventually he asks her to marry him… in a roundabout fashion. She takes time to say yes, but from the start it’s obvious that they’re very different people.
Keegan’s writing is masterful, and her imagery is sublime. This is Cathal’s response to a lady on the bus asking about his plans: ‘I’m just going to take it easy’, Cathal said, threading the speech into a corner, where it might go no further.’ Dialogue from secondary characters also has pivotal importance.
Keegan uses quotidian life to explore profundities: male entitlement in this instance. No words are wasted. The foreshadowing which occurs early in the book will only be evident upon the second (or third) read. The impact Keegan generates is because of, rather than despite, the book’s brevity.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claire Keegan’s stories are translated into more than thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles.
Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award and in 2020 was chosen by The Times as one of the top fifty works of fiction to be published in the twenty-first century.
Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize, awarded for the best work of literature, regardless of form, to be published in the English language. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the Ambassadors’ Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
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