At surface level, Small Things Like These is a simple book. It is very short, few events take place, and it is very linear. However, after reading it, it feels like much more. I think Keegan captures something unique here - something experienced deep within oneself - in an extremely efficient and original way.

On one hand, she sets a scene, both in time and place, that captures, I think, exactly what she wants to present perfectly. The descriptions of weather, the area, and the mundane transcend into an image of life. Life, not for just the characters of the book, but a whole swathe of society at that time. She expresses a sense of place that is both beautiful and bitter. It is perfectly harsh and homely.

On the other hand, Keegan reaches an emotional depth that is so smoothly complex, which the setting is a perfect vessel for. The feelings expressed and depicted could be considered standard: guilt, turmoil, personal morality, and, eventually, relief. However, what Keegan does so well is that she has placed these emotions in such a way as to intensify and amplify them. Using the setting and characters she has built up so seemingly effortlessly, along with the real, lived experiences of girls in Magdeline laundries, Keegan explores the complexities of these feelings without the reader (at least when I was the reader) even registering the depths she is revealing. She is uncovering so profoundly certain human experiences, bringing them to the surface to leave the reader to contemplate.

Overall, this book describes and reveals a society so intimately and with such precise sentiment, quietly portraying humanity in a modest context. It takes actions and corresponding emotions and unassumingly enriches them into the complexity that defines humanity and almost does the human experience justice. All in a subtly eloquent small volume. These 110 (in my copy) pages will certainly stay with me for a while.