Close to Home (Magee Michael); Hamish Hamilton, 2023

Devastating, tough and tender, a portrait of modern masculinity as shaped by violence and poverty but also by the courage to love and to survive

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.

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