As the days pass Bill must decide if he will turn a blind eye to what goes on at the convent, as surely everyone else does, or step in and do a good deed. While delivering coal there Bill stumbles upon something he shouldn’t have seen, which as the father of daughters, leaves him troubled and absent-minded with his family. Up on the hill, the convent looms over the town, and it is here that the better-off send their laundry, the nuns running a well-respected business. You would think this is the 1950s, or earlier, but it is 1985. He sees a boy gathering sticks by the roadside and gives him the change from his pockets, even though he has little enough to spare. It’s a cold winter, and Bill draws our attention to the poverty of those around him who can’t afford their coal bill. Set during the weeks before Christmas in a small Irish town, we are with Bill Furlong, a coal merchant as he makes his deliveries and plans his holiday with his family – a wife and five daughters. I expected a small piece of perfection, and in many ways it is. After all it is a very small book – a novella really – and still it made last year’s Booker shortlist. Expectations were high when I picked up Small Things Like These.
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