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December 17, 2021

George Ernsberger
Posted 12/17/21

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove).

So, a short novel, Irish, that ends in the Christmas season; so…? So, not a bit of it. That is, that’s all true, or, you know, …

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December 17, 2021

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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove).

So, a short novel, Irish, that ends in the Christmas season; so…? So, not a bit of it. That is, that’s all true, or, you know, factual, but this is a beautifully written literary novel (the author is published in The New Yorker and such outlets), that will enlarge your soul, and won’t warm your heart as much as strengthen it. After having hurt it, some. There is almost no way of describing this jewel of a book without misleading you (that’s often true of the most serious works, for me, at least). Here’s another category it might fit into if it were a “category book” at all—it tells of, “exposes” you might say, if you happen not to know this history going in (I didn’t), a several-generation Irish Catholic church scandal of such depth and breadth and self-righteous cruelty that nobody in Ireland, now, ever speaks of it. One child is spared and a grownup redeemed, so our heart turns the last page still hurt, but now soaring, and that’s all I can say about all that.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Harper).

And another beautiful literary novel—not so jewel-like, maybe. Big, and beautiful as a thoroughbred, might be said of it, and slightly comic (and here I am, struggling again; neither gems nor horses nor jokes figure in this book). This is a historical novel of the present, the second serious novel the column has seen that is by no means “about,” but integrates, the scourge of covid. It’s also a ghost story and a bookshop novel—and I know bookshops, so you can believe me when I tell you that Erdrich knows and understands this one better and deeper than I ever knew ours; it even has a particularly pain-in-the-neck old lady customer, even worse than ours: when this one dies, she continues to hang around the store as a ghost. And since it’s set in Minneapolis, the killing of George Floyd can’t be overlooked, and isn’t. So, clearly, by no means entirely comic. Erdrich’s last novel has just won the Pulitzer Prize, and they probably won’t give her two in a row, but that gives you an idea of the level, here.

Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey (Minotaur).

A first novel, a sharp-edged thriller (“dark” is the word a lot of early reviewers use for it) about a police department functionary whose duties are supposed to begin and end in transcribing crime-scene notes called in by police officers. Not entirely likable, this person, but we soon come to root for her; this is a very promising character and book.

It’s A Wonderful Woof: A Chet & Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn (Tom Doherty/Tor).

The twelfth of this series, the first Christmas-themed one the column has seen. It’s a full-length, novel, as always—and it works fine as a stand-alone, so a good place for your giftee (or you) to get acquainted with this series.

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