Small Things Like These

A well-crafted short story – a poetic style, which the author maintains throughout. She captures this simple person, Bill Furlong, with such depth that we readers could doodle out a decent sketch of him. The plot line is that Furlong carves out a legacy for himself, as a man with a deep soul and belief in the humanity of man. The theme, skirted by the author ala Johnathan Swift, is the scheme of the organized Catholic Church of taking advantage of unwed young women as slave labour. The story is just shy of being a polemic on the Church. Author Keegan has depicted Bill Furlong as an unschooled workman, who doesn’t need to understand the larger picture, but knows right from wrong, and is willing to act when confronted by evil. The author also deftly lets the readers see that it is his father who raised him; without Bill himself fully understanding that fact.