Most books skip over the ordinary things of life. Eating breakfast, washing dishes, and having those boring conversations about boring things we all have to suffer through once in a while. These ordinary things make up a life, but they are just that, ordinary. Every day. The usual.
Stories talk about extraordinary things. Like learning how to ride a dragon or a space ship, saving the earth, or doing magic. These are the stuff epic stories are made of. The stories focus on the fantastic, and we wonder if the character ever eat.
Some books, however, glory in the ordinary. Instead of skipping over it, they revel in the details of an average day. Such a book is ‘Small Things Like These’, by Claire Keegan.
It is a short book. Only two hours if you are listening to it. The entire thing is snapshot of an ordinary life over the course of a few days. Bill Furlong, our protagonist, is a husband and father, and owns a coal yard. In case you were wondering, it is set in Ireland in the 1980’s, which is a great reason to love the book already. Anyway. In the story, he is just going about his daily routine during the holiday season.
But, in describing it this way, I am not doing the story justice. This book is made up of layers upon layers. The first layer is the outer ordinariness of life. The second is Bill’s inner life. His thoughts, wishes, and memories. Throughout his average days, Bill is considering his past, his present, and his future. He remembers where he has been, and wonders what it is all for. Of course, he isn’t always thinking so introspectively. After all, everyone thinks about ordinary things sometimes. Such as Christmas presents and jigsaw puzzles.
This was a part of the book I loved. Where the inner life of our character Bill is in juxtaposition to the outer ordinariness of life. Our inner lives run through and in our outer lives, sometimes what is going on inside of us has nothing to do with the outer circumstances of life. But it is the lens through which I see my outer life, and give meaning to it.
The last layer, so deep we only see glimpses of it, is Bill pondering a great decision he needs to make. Should he act, or should he leave it be? It is this decision that drives the course of the entire book. Bill is faced with a moral dilemma, and as he goes about his life, he wonders how to resolve it.
Just in case you want to read it, I won’t tell you exactly what his moral dilemma is. However, I will tell you it ends beautifully. All of the layers of the story, and of his life, come together in a harmonious whole. The book ends with hope for the future, hope that exudes into every layer, despite the odds stacked against it.
I loved this book and its celebration of ordinary life, and ordinary heroism. It reminded me to look for the beauty surrounding my life in the midst of the ordinary.
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 