Close to Home - Winner of the Rooney Prize for Literature 2023

AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST 2023

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

''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

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 tim