The festive story you need isn’t the one you’re expecting

While I’ll never let a festive season pass without multiple viewing of Love, Actually and The Holiday, I’m not much a “Christmas books” person. Given that I’m passionate about both books and the holiday season, my lack of Christmas reading ritual has always felt a bit like a gap.

Lately, though, during my daily perusal of my local bookstore and regular scroll through my book Instagram’s main feed, I’ve had a realization. Most of the Christmas books I come across are cozy mysteries. And cozy mysteries, lovely though they may be, are simply not my style.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, allow me to enlighten. A cozy mystery is essentially a thriller, dialed back to maintain a G - PG rating. They don’t contain sex, graphic violence, or any explicit language. They typically take place in a small town where everyone knows each other. And they’re always tied up with a vindicated hero and a satisfying bow at the end.

For some, it’s an ideal means by which to seek comfort. What could be better than reading a cute little Christmas mystery in the bath or by the fire as snow falls outside? Honestly, sounds great if you’re into it, but I have a well-established reading routine and the “comfort” spot is taken.

Realizing these weren’t my type of books led me to evaluate my reading rituals in general, and I came to the following conclusion. As an antidote to a stressful time, I’ll opt for a page-turning thriller (not a cozy one. I’m talking shock twists and turns, à la The Silent Patient and The Maidens) - they keep my mind occupied and present, decreasing the amount of time I have to spend ruminating on the anxiety du jour. My “comfort” books are royal biographies; I’m a sucker for the heady mix of history, gossip, and glamour. On vacation, I’ll often opt for non-fiction or more ambitious books, because I have time to fully focus and notate.

But when I’m not on vacation, stressed out, or simply seeking comfort, my favorite type of book is one that moves me. It’s something all of my favorite books have in common: flawed protagonists that rise and fall as the story progresses, all of whom are doing their best, with varying results. It’s why I loved Demon Copperhead so much. It’s why passages from Writers & Lovers, Sorrow & Bliss, The Interestings, The Most Fun We Ever Had, and Transcendent Kingdom still stick with me, years after my first reading. It’s probably why some of my friends don’t take book recommendations from me anymore - “too sad.” And it’s certainly also why I’ve finally found my “Christmas book.”

I mentioned this in my review of The Rachel Incident from a month ago - but Irish writers have a particular talent for melancholy. And my Christmas book in question - Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These - is no exception.

Small Things Like These is a novella - which also makes it an ideal Christmas read, as, if you’re anything like me, you may not have as much time to get lost in a full-blown book. It was published in 2021, but seems to be enjoying a bit of recent resurgence. I picked it up after seeing it recommended on Pandora Sykes’ newsletter Books + Bits, and, days after I finished it, saw it featured in Leslie Stephens’ Substack, Morning Person.

Small Things Like These takes place in 1985, days before Christmas. Logging merchant Bill Furlong is completing his pre-Christmas deliveries. During his delivery to the local convent, he comes across a bedraggled girl named Sarah, who frantically begs him to “save” her by spiriting her out behind the nuns’ back. Furlong asks around - and is warned away from looking too deeply into the convent’s unholy ongoings - but it’s clear they’re something of an open secret. In the days that follow, he reckons with his identity as a churchgoing man in the face of their subtle but flagrant abuses of power; personal responsibility to give back, as the son of a teen mother; and commitment to maintaining stability within his own family.

Though Small Things Like These is narrated in the third-person, Keegan’s incisive prose offers clear, direct insight into Furlong’s conscience, while provoking the reader (if you’re anything like me) to take a deeper look into the sordid history of Ireland’s convents and laundries. It’s a searching, sad, and meaningful book on the power we, as individuals, have to affect change, and the ways in which we can do it quietly (an especially refreshing reminder as we find ourselves at peak performative social media activism). And it really is the perfect holiday read - because looking after others is what this season is actually all about.