Close to home

Magee debuts with a consummate and searching bildungsroman of a young Belfast man trying to square his future with a painful heritage. It's 2013, and Sean has just earned an English degree in Liverpool, his departure from Belfast alone a feat among his old mates, who came of age with no prospects in the wake of the 2008 recession. Now he's back home, squatting in a dodgy flat, stealing groceries to survive, and trying to hold down a nightclub job while getting blasted on cocaine and vodka with his friends. The sectarian violence of the Troubles is in the rearview, but the memories are ever-present. His mother, whom he moves back in with after the squat is repossessed, used to hide guns in their house when he was a little boy; and his estranged father narrowly avoided execution by the IRA. In a poignant series of revelations, Magee shows why Sean's father was targeted, why he was saved, and why Sean doesn't see him anymore. Along the way, Sean serves out a community service sentence for assault, another event that Sean gradually unpacks in his thoughtful narration. He also makes new friends from nearby Queen's University, who offer glimmers of a different life. Magee demonstrates profound psychological acuity and a keen sense of place, showing how Belfast has shaped his characters and how the past is etched into the streets. His strongest achievement is in the sensitive portrait of Sean, who doesn't want to lie to himself and eventually works up to the truth. Readers won't want this to end. (May)

A young man in Northern Ireland sees little hope of escape from hard times in this persuasive debut. Sean Maguire returns home to Belfast with a university degree in literature and no prospects. A recession has eroded the job market, and serving drinks in a nightclub doesn't pay much. As his narrative opens, he's 22, sharing a mold-ridden flat that's soon to be repossessed, cheating the supermarket's self-checkout for free food, and drifting from one binge to another. A violent assault lands him in court, where 200 hours of community service and a hefty fine add to his woes. His family is haunted by his father's sexual abuse of Sean's older brother when he was a child. And 20 years after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Sean's contemporaries see few gains in the wake of the Troubles, with its legacy of trauma and bitterness. Magee's is a dark tale but rather understated when compared with the extreme sorts of dead-enders found in Rob Doyle's Here Are the Young Men (set in Dublin) and Gabriel Krauze's Who They Was (in London). What's especially plausible are the many snares that even an intelligent fellow like Sean falls into because of self-pity or laziness or that old reliable demon, peer pressure, thanks to enabling childhood buddies. Only a chance meeting with an old friend--one of the two strong female characters, along with Sean's mother--suggests that a better life is within reach. Mairéad was "always getting into all sorts of trouble with the peelers" (police), but she went to university and crucially found a better life afterward with fellow graduates. As she says, "I made new friends." That sounds simplistic, but the key is the inverse: She avoided the old friends, the old snares. An impressive coming-of-age tale enriched by its bleak setting. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.