Close to Home

byMichael Magee, Conor MacNeill (Read by)
Anthony grew up brawling with the headcases round the estate, torching stolen cars, beaking school. His little brother Sean was supposed to be different. He was supposed to leave and never come back.

But Sean does come back. Finished with university, he finds Anthony's drinking spiralling out of control as the dark shadow of his childhood catches up on him. Meanwhile the jobs in Belfast have vanished and no one will give Sean the time of day. One night he loses it and assaults a stranger at a party, and everything is tipped into chaos.

Close to Home witnesses the aftermath of this mistake, as Sean attempts to make sense of who he has become, and to find a way through the rubble. And it maps, with great compassion, the forces which keep young working class men in harm's way, the silences that exist in the gaps between what is sayable, and the formidable courage required to survive.

Exceptional . . . Every detail rings true, every character is fleshy and real and heartbreaking . . . Magee has a remarkable talent

Sunday Times (Laura Hackett)

About Michael Magee

Michael Magee is the fiction editor of the Tangerine and a graduate of the creative writing PhD programme at Queen’s University, Belfast. His writing has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, The Lifeboat and The 32: The Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices. Close to Home is his first novel. It was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2023 and won the Rooney Prize for Literature 2023.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • ISBN: 9780241999172
  • Length: 457 minutes
  • Price: £13.00
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