Loved this book - love sad irish fiction. Loved the characters and felt so connected to them. Would love to read more.

Belfast Bearings

I was blown away by this novel, a telling of a young man’s struggle to redirect the path his life has taken. Sean forged his way through school in Belfast, journeyed to Liverpool to get his degree in English Lit, and returned home only to find himself tangled up in a world without opportunity. Things get worse when he finds himself on trial for assaulting a guy at a party, his first brush with the law. The setting is Belfast after The Troubles, an era that was supposed to hold so much promise.

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free – Donald Fagen

Sean is having difficulty keeping even the most menial job, faces eviction from his dilapidated flat, and is having a hard time imagining a future beyond the vodka-and-cocaine-filled nightly parties. His best friend Ryan is urging Sean to escape with him to Australia. His love interest, Mairéad, may be seeing someone else and is planning her own escape– to Berlin. Everyone’s option is escaping– traditionally the only alternative in Irish culture.

Recently, in reviewing plotlines of Irish works such as this one, or Donal Ryan’s “Queen of Dirt Island,” or Colin Barrett’s “Homesickness,” I realize they may sound bleak and filled with desperation. Each of these books, however, are fueled with tremendous humor and hope. “Close to Home” presents us with a young man determined to take accountability for his actions and formulate his own future.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Michael Magee, in his first novel, for giving a portrayal of post-Troubles Belfast. #CloseToHome #NetGalley

It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on suicide, child sexual abuse, financial insecurity, mental illness, the repercussions of state violence, & others.

The sheer force of the social climate leaves Sean stranded. His friends remain tethered to their inabilities. Sometimes they want clarity but, only if it comes with the genteel ability to collect upon a success that was not tallied by hours of work. The circle in which he wades is going in one direction, to revisit the starting point every couple of days when the men realize that their lives are wasting away. There is little room in this group for an alternate reality, for a system clear of substance, & eyes that have remained shut all night long. 

The reader meets Sean in his apartment. The scene sets the tone for the book yet, it remains practically inconsequential. The room is decaying & it is old. The Ireland of this book has perhaps not so much changed since this story took place. A land of charm & humour, the reality that harbours itself in the homes of the citizens reveals a government that has let its citizens down—disappointed those who rely on its leadership. While not impossible to understand, the rivets of intergenerational trauma have poisoned the water source & see many nuclei of people suffer from the raging violence that is discounted today as simply part of England’s silly quirky history. 

The sheer will of any Irish citizen to burst free of the cobblestone & green fields is an act of rebellion selfish in its needs. This is not to say that it is wrong. On the contrary, the desire to free oneself from imminent turmoil is beauty shrouded in tears & lacerations. Due to this truth, the characters in the book suffer from redundancy. Again, this is not a bad thing, it simply is a state of being. When one has no money to seek intellectual or social validation, one is expected to do nothing more than what carried them through tedious hours of the day. Sean is stuck in a cycle that sees him biding his time; stuck in a place he has known as home. 

The beauty of this novel is its ability to maneuver the reader through redundant scenes without them feeling tiresome. Would the reader have rather Sean walked the railway into another country? Perhaps, but, this does not solve the root of the issue. At once a man who is traditionally well-educated, Sean finds himself faced with the torment of knowing too much with little ability to act on said awareness. It doesn’t necessarily help when one is stuck in a bad place, to know that the place is bad. The tools one needs to leave said place are often just out of reach. This is part of the reason why folks say that ignorance is bliss. 

When the reader takes the time to study the reality of each of the characters one is faced with the sad awareness of a group of people who have numbed themselves to their own lives. I cannot necessarily blame them for that. Sean’s mother exhibits the signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); having lived through a period in Irish history when the British knocked down doors, violated Irish citizens, and stole agency & independence from them—a card trick they seem quite intent on up keeping. All the while, the Irish people in the North of Ireland were meant to die for the land that was their home. 

The title of this book is certainly not lost on the veteran reader. Danger is often not a thing of strange lands & masked villains but rather the torment found in one’s childhood home, or the street where laughter should have rung freely. This truth makes the introduction of each of the characters difficult to stomach. An ideal study of the intricacies of mental illness is found within Sean’s family. The familiar & quotidian meal of fish sticks in front of the television, the cycle of substance abuse to numb memories, & the deterioration of the physical body to escape a world that has harmed it.  

So much of what transpires in this novel feels disconnected from the shadowed homes that Sean wanders through. His party lifestyle is not in actuality a deficiency in his healing as much as it is a consequence of his youth & surroundings. If there are no jobs for hire, there is no work & without work, there is no pay. Money might not grant us the ease of a healthy mind but it certainly pays for the products & services that tenderize the devilish pains of existence. 

When I first met Sean he seemed just like anybody I might have known. His lifestyle was not so different from mine at his age & to tell the truth, the reasons that left us stranded in extroverted casualties were rather similar too. I kept my fingers crossed that the job at the bookshop might pan out or that Sean might find a way to work through the hidden secrets of his lineage. The burden of Sean’s life felt heavy in my hands as I read the book. The author’s intentions in transcribing the Irish reality felt nostalgic, genetic to me & mine; horribly soft in their overt familiarity; vulgar in their slurred words & castrated malaise. 

The reader is meant to remember that life is indeed quite short. Within a short few generational divides, Sean sees his family torn apart. His mother suffers from insurmountable anxiety & dread, his older brother is drowned by his lived experiences with childhood sexual assault, & Sean’s own father is a child predator. How is one meant to succeed in life when the sun never lights the way?

I felt tenderness toward Sean, not because I thought he needed my sympathies—I’m sure he would have felt uncomfortable at the knowledge that someone felt for him. Rather, I hoped that the cycle of his own circumstances might set him free so I found myself softly rooting for him outside the pages. Without knowing how, I am sure that Sean might find himself in a different environment, one day. I don’t know that leaving Ireland entirely would change the facts. People suffer everywhere around the world. 

Yet, I wonder still if perhaps a quick train ride to a place where communication is stilted might leech the pain from his vernacular; might induce his life with new scents & flavour to encourage the pallet of his existence to thrive in a place that does not chronically remind him of his youth. I am of the belief that one can escape what lives in the mind. Things have not worked that way in my life so I am unable to willfully believe that the Irish countryside might grant me freedom from my own thoughts. Yet, I wish for Sean to find himself in a field of green that makes him forget the yellow of dying grass. 

The premise of this story feels circular in nature as the nights round in on themselves & it appears that all Sean wants to do is go out & party with his friends. It is up to the reader whether or not they are in the mood to delve deeper. With that being said, I can appreciate that this book might feel very numbing to the mind. The characters stay in their own environments. When someone moves away we do not see them there, they reside in the plot only as a sideline when the countryside cautions them back via telephone or tertiary conversation.

Within this reality, one can be bogged down by the material. The discussions of child abuse, substance abuse, suicide, self-harm, promiscuity, & poverty, provide a filament environment where no one wins. The prose of this book lies in simple lettering, distinctly easy reading for a book that covets’ horribly tragic lives. I appreciated this approach very much. Though I can certainly get carried away with romantic language, this story deserved the delicate ease of linguistics that it provided to the reader. One need not a thousand words to express one’s hurt. 

If a reader is looking for a book that goes in-depth on the consequences of violence wherein the normalcy of the character renders the abuse otherworldly, one has come to the right place. So often we view villainy as a principle of the devious antagonist. Art mediums reflect on pain in ways that might make the sufferer feel as though the emotion wasn’t attached to them like a prosaic virus. However, human emotion is, at its core, too big for us to handle. We do not have the vocabulary to excite the depth of feeling nor do we have the transferring ability to settle sentiments into the open palms of another. We rely on stories, proximity, & warnings. 

To love too much is to lose oneself. To suffer eternally is like a seventh layer of Hell. What of the inferno of human experience? Whereupon the journey of individual experiences does the solitary insight the knowledge to never wander alone? In Sean’s family, no one comes out & says what is happening. Characters play therapist because this is what it means to be related; one is expected to gorge on the morbid experiences of another to lessen the weight carried by the genetic tree. 

What I loved the most about this story is that it felt like home without the pressures of cement leaning onto my spine. Sean felt like family & he felt like me. It is easy to want the best for a character when one is distanced from them via the pages of the book. This story asks the reader to familiarize themselves with each individual person & feel the fright of solitude that comes with living in a place ravaged by war. 

Ultimately, I found myself walking the same streets as Sean eager to see him peruse the shelves of the bookstore. I longed for his years to fly by so that he might not feel the calloused pull of red string down his spine; that he might know that life changes alongside the many sun & moon rotations, even though it might not seem that way day to day. This book represents the torment of Ireland’s eternal strength in survival, hope & love. The Irish are charmers of the heart as much as they are carriers of the flame that masks the frost of night. 

Thank you to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, & Michael Magee for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

A strong debut from Michael Magee. Close to home carefully and beautifully explores themes of masculinity, trauma, and poverty. The story is intense, though hopeful. A gritty coming of age tale laced with dark deadpan humour.

Major thanks to NetGalley and Farrar & Straus for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

If Sally Rooney did YA for filmbros.

Magee's writing shines through in characterization with our protagonist, Sean, a puppy-boy whom you root for through thick and thin. In West Belfast, we have terrible teens who drink too much and do too many drugs. Some die from it, some just survive. Between a rock and a hard place, Sean is looking for a ways out, swerving through life, love, and the very brute of it all.

Though the novel has its charm, it's quite sleepy in its plot and dialogue. Everyone beats around the bush. No one tackles things head on. This is hard to deal with when one of the themes is toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity becomes a stiff stick in the mud, lost in the shroud of simple nothings. Because the landscape is purely white noise, it's hard to make anything out of the novel in its length and lukewarm output.

This feels very much like a debut novel. My hopes are Michael does something even more brilliant with his characterization in a richer more refined story.

Skip the freshman, go for the sophomore.

22-year-old Belfast native Sean Maguire returns home after graduating from University of Liverpool with a degree in English Literature, the first in his family to attend university. Sean has literary ambitions, he has studied hard and has high hopes of getting a good job in editing or publishing, but job opportunities are sparse. Nothing has changed in Belfast while Sean was away: his friends are still struggling with unemployment, poverty, and despair, while his family is trying to cope with sexual abuse and addiction. One night, Sean assaults a stranger at a party, and his life is reeling. Only the two strong women in his life—his old girlfriend Mairéad and Sean’s mother—are able to see a better life for Sean and encourage him to find a way out of his community’s cycles of violence.

I wanted to like this novel more than I actually did, despite some good writing and a fascinating setting. I appreciated the focus on the aftermath of the Troubles: the story effectively highlights how the future didn’t turn out as bright as promised for young people and that so much poverty, pain and senseless violence still remain in Belfast twenty years after the conflict. This story feels close to the author’s own life and experiences, but I would have liked more emotional depth to the characters, especially Sean’s family, given that there’s so little plot development. Still, this is a promising first novel, a fresh new voice and a writer to keep your eyes on as there may be even better novels in Michael Magee’s future.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing an e-galley in exchange for my honest review.

I struggled with this novel about a young man living a bleak and unforgiving existence in Belfast in 2013 because it's,. well, bleak. Sean is 22, he's got a university degree, and not much else. His family is, to put it mildly, a mess. The Troubles still lurk in the background of life. The only bright spot is Mairead who is determined to make change. A fight, a refusal to plead guilty, and a requirement for community service create the frame. This will likely turn up on Best Of and prize lists but it is not a joy to read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Michael Magee's debut work, Close to Home, offers a poignant glimpse into the harsh realities faced by those on the fringes of society who are sadly affected by systemic poverty in Belfast. The novel delves into the economic and social struggles of poverty, addiction, and trauma as we follow Sean's journey to find his place in society, perforated with obstructions such as class divides and systemic issues within his community. Magee masterfully explores the complexities of masculinity, portraying multifaceted characters that confront a range of emotions and behaviors, including substance abuse and addiction. These challenges make it arduous for Sean to establish his identity and sense of belonging, but Magee shows compassion by allowing us to become intimately acquainted with Sean's inner thoughts. This will enable us to root for him to overcome these barriers, hope he perseveres, and see him succeed.

There's nothing there...there.

While this DOES tell a compelling story of brothers, it leaves much to be desired. There's not an inner voice, no depth, no development.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Michael Magee’s debut novel follows Sean, a young man returning home to Belfast after university.

Even though the flat he shares with his friend Ryan is on the verge of repossession, Sean still finds himself out on the “gear” most nights, risking losing his bar job, and pulling schemes at the local supermarket to get by.

A run in at a house party one night brings up an assault charge against Sean and changes the course of his life. He’s then forced to reckon with the relationships that have shaped him.

Close to Home felt like a coming of age novel as Sean looked to the past, found meaning in the present, and considered a different outlook for his future.

The characters that Magee has created; Sean’s mother, his brother Anto, and his childhood friend Mairéad were among those that leapt off the page, each with a life of their own.

Gorgeous and tender, this is a novel with themes of post-war Belfast, the class divide, loneliness, and dreaming. It’s also about friendships, new and old, and how the people we surround ourselves with can change who we are and who we become. Magee is a talent to watch.

Close to Home is personal to me in that it brought me home to the Belfast I know. The places and the people. It was all so familiar. That’s Belfast, and even though I've moved away, it'll always be home.

3.25 stars
This novel had my attention in waves. I like Sean, the mother, Anthony, and Mairéad. I found the way that Sean and Mairéad interact to be realistic. I appreciate their long lasting friendship. Mairéad is very good for Sean. I love how they encourage each other in their career endeavors. The way they communicate with one another is my favorite aspect of the novel. It was really nice to see the brother bond grow near the end of the book.
Although the moments when Sean wasn’t interacting with those characters/after the trial couldn’t keep my attention.

Toxic masculinity is a scourge in most societies these days. Young men are adrift. They are single with few if any prospects. They have experienced brutal wars, ethnic cleansing, and global warming leading to heartbreaking population displacement and uncontrolled immigration. They have endured the Great Recession, Covid, rampant mental illness, drug use, addiction, overdose, and increases in suicide rates. A dearth of steady employment at a liveable wage and an increasing lack of affordable housing have led to constant struggle. Settling down to raise a family is often not a viable choice. Street crime is often seen as the only way out, though that inevitably leads to violence, arrest, and incarceration. Many live a life of despair feeling that plans and decisions have no meaning: nothing to gain, nothing to lose. Many have a nihilistic view of their lives and the future of humanity.

It is this world that Michael Magee confronts in his impressive and bracing debut novel, “Close To Home”. Magee’s youth are experiencing their coming of age in Belfast. They are not more than a generation removed from “The Troubles” which have left deep wounds, trauma, and acts of internecine violence that still are a hair trigger away from retribution.

Magee is a talented writer. He fills “Close To Home” with clever, witty dialogue which feels and sounds fresh, modern, hip, and authentic. Events and scenes are described with a cinematic depth and are often jolting. He clearly knows about what he writes. “Close to Home” should have broad appeal to serious readers.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the eARC

In Michael Magee's debut novel, Sean returns home to Belfast after going away from school and the aftermath of him assaulting a stranger at a party. While I was really intrigued by the description having to do with modern masculinity shaped by class and trauma, this book fell a bit flat for me.


Magee's writing style is reminiscent of Sally Rooney's in that there is no quoted dialogue, but remains unique in his own regard. This is a style I quite enjoy but I think the main thing I struggled with was feeling connected to the characters. Though well written, without the connection to the characters I couldn't really let myself get lost in the story.

A strong debut, just not my favorite novel of the year.

I reached out to the publisher twice get this as a physical copy as an accommodation for my disability but didn’t hear back. I can’t read digital books for too long, but what I’ve read I have adored so I just preordered the book myself.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing the digital copy.
Page 126/221

A young man, Sean, returns to Belfast from Liverpool with an English Literature degree during a recession. With little opportunity for work and no money, he reconnects with troubled young men from his youth and is caught in a pattern of substance abuse, partying, violence, and the constant threat of violence. Sean both makes many mistakes and is judged unfairly by those in positions of power, and I found myself anxious throughout the story as to whether he would make another bad decision and how others would trample on any hope he had left.

The story is a compelling read, and I couldn't put it down for long, needing to know what would become of Sean. Particularly insightful and touching was to see him re-establish a friendship with Mairead, his friend from childhood. The subplots of his mother's revelations of her experiences raising her children and his brother Anthony's struggles were both touching and heartbreaking.

I am once again here to gloat on Irish writing. Close to Home was a total slice-of-life story of a family affected by generational trauma from the Troubles. What I found significant about this novel was the ability Magee had to write through the subtle emotional changes of Sean, our main man. From the beginning, you can’t help but root for him, even while he makes poor decisions and avoids any type of internal evaluation. To me, this novel is what I love about the slice-of-life stories; character development as plot, in spades.

What I would drink while reading Close to Home: Stout!

Thanks to FSG for an ARC edition!

A beautifully written book that tells the story of a young guy trying to break out of the vicious cycle of drugs, violence and poverty, set in a part of Belfast that is still trying to come to terms with the troubles. I really enjoyed the characters and found the story very real.

Getting into Sean as his friends heads a bit more to understand their thoughts and feelings about the situations they find themselves in and their hopes for the future and how they feel failing at every turn would just lift this book even more, but even so, this was a gritty, realistic and moving story.

Achingly beautiful. If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would. Close to Home is an exquisite piece of literary fiction detailing the harsh realities of growing up in Belfast during a recession and living under the thumb of generational trauma.

In his debut novel, Michael Magee describes the story of 22-year-old Belfast native Sean, a working class citizen with an English degree struggling to make ends meet and after he has assaulted a man at a party. His older brother, Anthony, is in the throws of addiction and stirs up turmoil in Seans family, while his Mother struggles to make peace with the life she has given herself and her sons. Aside from personal struggles, The Troubles also haunt Sean and those around him. Our protagonist fights to crawl out from under the oppressive hopelessness of his community while battling family and cultural trauma, self-hate, and his class background.

This novel dissects the themes of generational trauma, addiction and violence, poverty, self-loathing, and class lines in breathtaking prose, leaving the reader with a feeling of deep understanding and empathy for those living in a society permeated by trauma and despair. Fans of Sally Rooney and Douglas Stuart will enjoy this novel, as well as those who feel adrift in early adulthood.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. I loved it.

first and foremost this is literary fiction. this novel did not do what it promised in the description; it was mostly just sean partying and flirting with a girl. one night at a house party, sean gets into a pretty nasty fight with two men. in court, he is sentenced to a fine and two hundred hours of community service. he comes home and discovers his brother in disarray, always drunk.

i did not feel that this provided any insight into masculinity nor the pressures society places upon young men. sean is not a character you can connect to; i never felt close to him. it’s a quick, short read, but it really wasn’t working for me. the dialect was well written, and i have no qualms with that. however, the plot was just severely lacking in substance and the characters were underdeveloped. misleading description.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

Michael Magee delivers a powerful debut in "Close to Home.’ The novel follows 22-year-old Sean, a graduate with a degree in English who struggles with his violent past amidst the recession. It’s an unflinching look working-class life. Magee deftly explores the effects of trauma on the individual and toxic masculinity in society with raw, honest portrayals of his characters. He takes a a nuanced approach to issues which in lesser hands could become maudlin. This is a stunning debut.