Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

It is 1985, in an Irish town.

During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.

'Astonishing. Claire Keegan makes her moments real - and then she makes them matter.' Colm Toibin 'A true gift of a book. a sublime Chekhovian shock.' Andrew O'Hagan 'A moral tale that is unsentimental and deeply affecting, because true and right.' David Hayden