Claire Keegan’s 114 page historical fiction novel reveals a Magdalene laundry from the perspective of a son born out of wedlock into a Protestant widow’s household. Nurtured in this household, he is able to work diligently to care for his wife and five girls as a coal merchant.
The book is still swirling around in my head to be honest. I’m a bit haunted. Bill Furlong, main character, is deftly created as he lives out & finds pieces of his past that come to meet his present (thinking about the reflection of the town on the river, and the actual vision of the town). What is the right thing to do? How is it that we live sometimes in ignorance of what is going on in our world, and how do we begin living again?
I think it was an interesting choice to end the story where she decides to end it. It feels a little bit like a political choice in the end. Maybe instead of trying to impose some kind of traditional structure and narrative to it, or force-transposing that structure onto the events of the story based on their temporal cadence, I can just leave it be, too. It does leave me haunted, and tense, and culpable, like I should respond with my own story in kind.
I think I would really recommend it; I bought it during a trip to Dublin because I wanted to bring back a slice of the country with me. I think it’s a slice with defined edges, cut by a careful knife, the metallic bloodlike ghost of which is left as an aftertaste.