Read this when
Small Things Like These
Everyone in town knows what's happening behind the convent walls. He's the one who can't pretend anymore. 🕯️
Who it's for
Bill Furlong, a coal merchant with five daughters, stumbles on the suffering of girls at the local convent laundry in 1985 Ireland.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Claire Keegan's 2021 novella is set in New Ross, Ireland, in December 1985. Bill Furlong, a coal and fuel merchant with a wife and five daughters, discovers while delivering coal to the local convent that it operates as an abusive Magdalene laundry, and he encounters a girl named Sarah who has been locked out in the cold.
Where to find it
In print; widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla) and as an audiobook. Still in copyright, so not on Project Gutenberg.
Before you start
Heads up: Institutional abuse of girls.
Age: Ages 14+
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
