Despite the brevity of the text, Furlong’s emotional state is fully rendered and deeply affecting. Keegan, a prizewinning Irish short story writer, says a great deal in very few words to extraordinary effect in this short novel. Readers familiar with the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, institutions in which women were incarcerated and often died, will immediately recognize the circumstances of the desperate women trapped in New Ross’ convent, but Furlong does not immediately understand what he has witnessed. Now, as he approaches middle age, Furlong wonders, “What was it all for?…Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?” But a series of troubling encounters at the local convent, which also functions as a “training school for girls” and laundry business, disrupts Furlong’s sedate life. But the scars of his childhood linger: His mother gave birth to him while still a teenager, and he never knew his father. A coal and timber merchant living in New Ross, Ireland, he should be happy with his life: He is happily married and the father of five bright daughters, and he runs a successful business. An Irishman uncovers abuse at a Magdalen laundry in this compact and gripping novel.Īs Christmas approaches in the winter of 1985, Bill Furlong finds himself increasingly troubled by a sense of dissatisfaction.
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