Any cat can tell you that a comfortable habit is hard to break.
Miss Kitty, for example, loves to lounge on the lanai with a favorite book. Not that she has the time to read it, mind you. She’d like to, but life is complicated. There are so many other things to do, you know.
When I saw her with a couple of books written by Claire Keegan, it reminded me of a recent conversation with a friend and fellow writer. As much as she loves the written word, Shelley admitted that she rarely has time to read for pleasure. Three years of law school killed her passion for reading, she said.
“I don’t have time, either,” I said, referring to my own comfortable habits that are hard to break.
Besides a tight schedule of publicizing my first novel, writing my second one, critiquing the work of colleagues, preparing PowerPoints for my series on Celtic lore, posting blogs to this site, publishing a monthly newsletter, and participating in writers’ groups, there’s a house to clean, meals to cook, and, of course, water volleyball to play.
“Try to make a little time to read Claire Keegan,” Shelley suggested, having followed the advice of yet another writer who also didn’t have time to read. Praising Keegan’s clarity, brevity, and veracity, she concluded, “She can say so much in just a few words.”
Miss Kitty purred. She likes concise communication.
Before I could procrastinate, I headed to my local library and checked out Foster and Small Things Like These, a couple of novellas that pack more than a couple of literary punches.
First published in 2010 and re-released in 2022, Foster explores the world of rural Ireland in the mid-1980s when a nameless girl is sent to live with relatives for a summer. In stark contrast to her own impoverished home defined by a shiftless father and overwhelmed mother, the summer refuge is childless, tidy, and loving.
Following clues dropped like spilled milk, the reader probes the world of love, loss, and poverty through innocent eyes. Lessons are simple and understated.
The girl learns, for example, that silence is powerful. “Many’s the man lost much,” her uncle says, “Just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.”
Small Things Like These, published in 2021, is as compelling and concise. It is the story of Bill Furlong, a compassionate coal merchant and devoted family man who finds a girl locked in the fuel shed of a Catholic convent.
The discovery forces him to look at the simple pleasures and complicated history of his own life. In an introspective drift through town in the days before Christmas, he watches a stout-brown river swallow snowflakes—an apt metaphor for a perfunctory society that thrives on complicit silences.
Torn between courses of action, Bill knows his decision will affect many lives.
His decision, like Keegan’s writing style, is simple and graceful.
Keegan points to Anton Chekhov as a guiding force. In a letter he wrote to his brother Alexander about the meaning of grace, Chekhov says that it stems from the ability to complete an action with the fewest number of movements. She applies the same principle to her writing.
“What pleases me,” Keegan says, “is brevity.”
Miss Kitty calls it simplicity. Nothing pleases her like an afternoon on the lanai with a good book. Even if she doesn’t have much time to read it. It’s a comfortable habit that’s hard to break.
Reading Claire Keegan could easily become a comfortable habit that’s hard for me to break.
What the Cats Are Reading 