lgbtq+ WRITING

I recently read Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. I found it such a wonderful book, offering lessons in story telling that I want to learn from.

It is a masterclass in creating a vast, vivid and emotional landscape in a candid and compact narrative. Her effortless prose swiftly paints a beautiful (or miserable, sometimes) picture, illustrating (better than this review!) how a narrative can be both deeply meaningful and told with an economy of words.

Her ability to craft raw and vulnerable characters with such clarity and depth is something every writer can aspire to. The story is set in 1985, in a small Irish town, where we meet Bill Furlong, a coal merchant faced with a moral dilemma upon discovering a young girl locked in a convent’s coal shed.

This moment of tension is a pivot around which the entire narrative turns, showcasing Keegan’s skill in building narratives that are emotionally resonant, yet understated.

The audiobook, narrated by Aidan Kelly, adds a layer of immersion to the storytelling, with his delivery almost like a flowing musical movement, enhancing the text’s emotional depth and narrative rhythm.

Keegan’s narrative world is rich with family dynamics, where each character’s role is nuanced and significant, never overshadowing the others. Instead, the emotional resonance comes from the interplay between characters, their unspoken truths, and the landscape that whispers secrets they themselves might not know.

I think a lot of Keegan’s work tries to navigate stories which are both brutal and tender, and this short novel might be more covert in its storytelling than some of her previous work.

I want to try and learn from this: my current writing does not manage to get across such depth in a subtle way. I hammer home my narrative: she reveals it lingering beneath the surface.

Bill Furlong, the protagonist, stands as a testament to the complexity and depth that well-told characters can possess. His life on the face of it hints at simplicity, but his mind is filled with what-ifs and what-might-have-been that really resonate with the reader. Keegan handles dark moments and dark themes through Furlong’s life with a deft touch.

In short, I love it. Small Things Like These is beautifully crafted and I want to learn from it. She shows how to weave a complex set of emotions through brevity with nuance, darkness with light.