Collected Works of Claire Keegan

A few years ago, I started changing how I read. If I found a book I really loved, I began reading the rest of the author’s works instead of considering it a one-off; I know it sounds simplistic, but it’s generally not how we’re taught to read (excluding those authors who write long running series). I did it with Michael Ondaatje’s work first and am currently on an Ann Patchett kick, but I’d like to talk about Claire Keegan today, whose books I read over the course of a month last summer. Keegan is an Irish author (a belated Happy St. Paddy’s to you all) with several short story collections and novellas to her name. Her novella “Small Things Like These,” about an ordinary man who confronts the horrors of the Magdalene Laundries, is how I came to find her in the first place. It’s being adapted into a movie and was on so many book lists I paid attention to that I finally picked up a copy last July and read it in one sitting.