Started on 5.13.25, finished on 5.17.25

This is a sad, lovely, thought-provoking little—very little—book. Though I didn’t read it in one sitting, it’s definitely one that you could.

This was the first I’d heard of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. I don’t really know what to say about it, to be honest. It’s the kind of thing that is disheartening but not at all surprising; another on the long list of atrocities that have been perpetrated against women in not-that-distant history. I really appreciated the way the book handled the story—not preachy, not obvious, just a small story of one man and the way he found himself involved, and of him doing the one small thing he was able to do to help. It’s really lovely and I highly recommend it.

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My favorite quotes:

“But people said lots of things—and a good half of what was said could not be believed; never was there any shortage of idle minds or gossips about town.”

“If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore, so you can keep on.”

“‘You don’t mind bringing the foreigners in.’ ‘Hasn’t everyone to be born somewhere,’ Furlong said. ‘Sure wasn’t Jesus born in Bethlehem.’”

“Gossipers stayed down on the edge of the aisle to get a good gawk, watching for a new jacket or haircut, a limp, anything out of the ordinary.”

“He found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”