Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These and Foster

In rating Small Things Like These 41st on its list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, the New York Times said: “Not a word is wasted in Keegan’s small, burnished gem of a novel, a sort of Dickensian miniature….”

This is an important novella in the vein of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but with an ending that packs a different punch. At its center is a man torn between family, community, church, and one young woman in a terrible predicament. He must make a choice, and Keegan’s exquisite, concise writing reveals that agonizing choice. It’s a perfect story to ponder and discuss: What would you choose in his situation?

Keegan’s other work, “Foster,” is a long short story with a big impact. No word is wasted as Keegan tells the story of a young girl sent to live with another family when her own mother is fraught with problems of her own. Again, in the New York Times’s glowing review they say: “Keegan makes us complicit in what her characters want, setting us up for utter heartbreak when they don’t get it.”

Foster’s is already considered canonical and is taught as a required text for Comparative Literature in the curriculum for Ireland’s secondary schools.

Join us in this two-week exploration of these incredible short works by an Irish writer of spare prose and mmense talent.