Description

WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2023
WINNER OF THE NERO BOOK AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION 2023
WINNER OF THE JOHN MCGAHERN PRIZE 2024
WATERSTONES IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023

Sean is back. Back in Belfast and back into old habits. Back on the mad all-nighters, the borrowed tenners and missing rent, the casual jobs that always fall through. Back in these scarred streets, where the promised prosperity of peacetime has never arrived. Back among his brothers, his ma, and all the things they never talk about. Until one night Sean finds himself at a party – dog-tired, surrounded by jeering strangers, his back against the wall – and he makes a big mistake.

‘Staggeringly humane, unfaltering, taut and tender… [It] feels like that rarest of things: a genuinely necessary book’ Guardian

‘Every detail rings true, every character is fleshy and real and heartbreaking… Michael Magee has a remarkable talent’ Sunday Times

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EWART-BIGGS PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2024
ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO THE TIMES AND IRISH TIMES

Publisher Review

Exceptional . . . Every detail rings true, every character is fleshy and real and heartbreaking . . . Magee has a remarkable talent * Sunday Times (Laura Hackett) * Taut and impressive, unfaltering and deftly executed . . . [It] feels like that rarest of things: a genuinely necessary book * Guardian (Keiran Goddard) * An exceptional debut destined for novel of the year shortlists * Irish Times (Martin Doyle) * Michael Magee is a born storyteller. By the end of the novel I wanted to book a flight to Ireland just to walk around and imagine who was where . . . I read this in two or three sittings only because I wanted to slow down and spend more time with Magee’s considered and companionate writing. I finished it only last month, but plan to take it with me abroad to enjoy it once more * Guardian ‘2023 Summer Reads’ (Derek Owusu) * A vision of a post-conflict Belfast that didn’t deliver what it promised, blighted by poverty, pain and memory. But far from being bleak, I laughed out loud many times. And it is full of love. Each character is so vividly drawn that I felt like I had met them somewhere before; even the most flawed of them is treated with dignity and respect, and an absence of judgement that reminded me of Annie Ernaux. And the writing! Supple, rich and demotic – Kneecap meets Chekhov – no one else is doing this. I had great hopes for this novel and Michael Magee has booted it out of the park. Absolutely glorious. — Louise Kennedy, author of ‘Trespasses’ Unflinching, direct, disarmingly sensitive . . . Suffusing his narrative with honesty and grace, Magee succeeds in bringing his neighborhood to life for readers and suggests that, amid what seems like a never-ending struggle, there is always room for hope * The Washington Post * Michael Magee’s Close to Home, amazingly a first novel, is about what it’s like to be young and working class right now in Northern Ireland, and is a tremendous read, tensed and immersive, punching the air between hope and despair, deeply decent, unputdownable * Guardian ‘2023 Summer Reads’ (Ali Smith) * Wonderful. A debut overflowing with years of experience and carefully worked craft. By turns hard-edged and soft-hearted, this novel is a gift from Michael Magee to us all — Jon McGregor, author of ‘Reservoir 13’ The message of Michael Magee’s dead-on debut novel is universal. At its core, Close to Home is about finding a way to transcend the pain, the people and the place you’re born into * The New York Times * A complex and compassionate portrait of modern Belfast by an impressive new talent . . . Close to Home is a working class novel, an Irish novel, a bildungsroman, a novel about the self-congratulatory failures of Northern Ireland’s political elite . . . [and a] sharp deconstruction of toxic masculinity * Times Literary Supplement * Lucid and stirring . . . Magee’s persistently evocative and beautifully matter-of-fact descriptions of Belfast’s landmarks and people are intertwined with a sensitive awareness of the city’s social, political and religious history * Literary Review * A convincing, nuanced debut, bleak but powerful, marrying the thematic unsentimentality of Edouard Louis with prose reminiscent of Irvine Welsh * Sunday Independent * A beautiful, rich, tough, kind portrait of a life in the balance. And a great study of masculinity, the brother, the friends, the long-lost dad. It’s full of hope — Russell T. Davies Magee skilfully paints the landscape of a city still scarred by the Troubles . . . The book’s themes – masculinity, class and history – don’t offer easy resolutions. Instead, Magee deftly conveys the anxieties of a generation facing an uncertain future * Irish Times (Mia Levitin) * A lyrical examination of masculinity, class, and poverty. Magee’s prose sings with the tenderness of a writer beyond his years * Electric Literature * Glorious. A bittersweet love letter to Northern Ireland… Magee confer[s] on even the ugliest of things (poverty, sectarianism, illness and death) a kind of sharp-edged elegance * The Times, ‘2023 Summer Reads’ * Beautifully observed and sharp as a knife tip – as real and as raw as the truths you tell on a comedown, in the early hours, in the darkness of some stranger’s house. Deeply affecting and badly needed, this is a novel I will be thinking about for a long time — Lisa McInerney, author of ‘The Glorious Heresies’ A shard of authenticity, originality and brilliance * The Times (Summer Reads: ‘Ask a bookseller’) * Terrific debut fiction — Anne Enright * Observer * Michael Magee’s first novel is superb. An emotionally true, keenly observed book that goes deep into the troubled territory of home, family and friendship, returning with a message of love — David Hayden, author of ‘Darker With The Lights On’ Close to Home does for Belfast what Shuggie Bain did for Glasgow. Its portrayal of a particular kind of masculinity – self-destructive and romantic by turns – is unsparing, funny and desperately sad. Keep an eye on Michael Magee; he’s the real deal. — Patrick Gale, author of ‘A Place Called Winter’ How beautifully Magee has brought his characters to life, and how intricately he has created their world * Irish Independent (Kevin Power) * Magee is his own man in his restrained approach . . . I took Sean to my heart and the last line of the book left me with a satsifying shiver * The Times (John Self) * The best debut I’ve read in years – a tender examination of class, masculinity and place — Nicole Flattery, author of ‘Show Them A Good Time’ Amazingly assured first novel. Magee is too good a writer… Gentle as well as brutal * The Tablet * As beautiful as it is brilliant. Reading Close to Home is like crossing a frontier into a new and thrilling territory — Glenn Patterson, author of ‘The International’ Close To Home announces an exciting new voice – at once open and wary, tender and unyielding – and sharply alive to the pains and discoveries and mysteries of youth — Colin Barrett, author of ‘Young Skins’ Ringing out clear and true as a bell, it gleams with tenderness and perception. There are few narrators so unassuming and unaffected, yet so full of sharp intelligence — Wendy Erskine, author of ‘Dance Move’ Precise, compulsive, companionable and genuinely moving. Michael Magee writes a world we see far too little of in contemporary literature. We need books like this — Sean Hewitt, author of ‘All Down Darkness Wide’ A beautiful and devastating debut novel about political memory, violence, masculinity, and the impossibility of escaping your origins. * Jacobin * A sharp and humane novel about a young man, and a city, caught in the painful throes of reimagining themselves. It rings with authenticity, and the wisdom of hard-won observation and experience – a hymn to the ways in which art can be a lifeline and an escape. Michael Magee’s debut is an important addition to the burgeoning new canon of Belfast literature — Lucy Caldwell, author of ‘These Days’ Compulsively readable – you will need to know how this ends! — Emilie Pine, author of ‘Notes to Self’ Sharp, immediate, beautiful writing. A vivid portrait of modern Belfast and of how our circumstances shape our lives. Every character is drawn with nuance and complexity, with great precision and attention to detail. I really loved this book — Rachel Connolly, author of ‘Lazy City’ Artfully crafted, compassionate, precise and unafraid. I loved this book — Susannah Dickey, author of ‘Common Decency’ Close to Home tracks brilliantly written characters across a vividly drawn Belfast * Business Post * One of the year’s most distinctive and immersive debuts . . . Drawing on his own experiences, Michael Magee refreshes the post-Troubles novel to wrestle with his community’s painful heritage of violence and poverty. It sounds bleak, but Sean’s voice fizzes with life * The Times, ‘Best Novels of 2023’ * It’s hard to find fault with a debut novel that unfold its storylines and characters with such care, handling themes of class, masculinity, addiction and trauma with both tenderness and a matter-of-factness * RTE, Book of the Week * Michael Magees Close to Home is yet another brilliant novel to emerge from Northern Ireland, making sense of the impact of the long conflict and the transition to troubled peace; Magee powerfully delineates the psychology of those crushed by betrayal * Irish Times, ‘Best Books of 2023’ *