Close to Home

Luminous and devastating, a portrait of modern masculinity as shaped by class, by trauma, and by silence, but also by the courage to love and to survive.

Sean's brother Anthony is a hard man. When they were kids their ma did her best to keep him out of trouble, but you can't say anything to Anto. Sean was supposed to be different. He was supposed to leave and never come back.

But Sean does come back. Arriving home after university, he finds Anthony's drinking is worse than ever. Meanwhile, the jobs in Belfast have vanished, Sean's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on, and no one will give him the time of day. One night he loses control and assaults a stranger at a party, and everything is tipped into chaos.

Close to Home witnesses the aftermath of that night as Sean attempts to make sense of who he has become, and to reckon with the relationships that have shaped him, for better and worse.

Drawing from his own experiences, Michael Magee examines the forces that keep young working-class men in harm's way, in a debut novel that shines with intelligence and humanity on every page. Close to Home is an extraordinary work of fiction about deciding what kind of a man you want to be and finding your place in the scarred city you call home.

Autorentext

Michael Magee

Klappentext

While growing up in West Belfast, Sean does every­thing he's supposed to do. He works hard, he studies, and he - mostly - stays out of trouble. The thirty-year conflict is over, he's told, and his future is lit with promise.

But when Sean returns home from university, he finds much of the same-the same friends doing the same gear in the same clubs; the same lost broth­ers and mad fathers; the same closed doors; the same silences. There are no jobs, Sean's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on, and no one will give him the time of day. One night, he assaults a stranger at a party, and everything begins to come undone.

Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles. It's a first novel drawn from life, written with the immediacy of thought. It's about what happens when men get desperate, about the cycles of loss and trauma and secrecy that keep them trapped, and about the struggle to get free.