Small Things Like These is a novella-length story by Irish writer Claire Keegan that, ultimately, is about the Magdalen laundries, run and financed by the Catholic Church in concert with the Irish State, where girls with child out of wedlock were forced to labor and give up their babies, the ones who didn’t die, to be adopted out. However, most of the story is a portrayal of simple life and the small things that make it up. It’s also a character sketch of a man who soldiers on for the sake of his family but is moved, against conventional prudence and deference to the power of the church, to help one of the girls at a Magdalen laundry. The writing is absolutely superb. Kirkus Reviews calls it stunning:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/claire-keegan/small-things-like-these/
