Northern Irish writer Michael Magee scores stellar success in Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize with debut novel Close To Home

Set in Belfast in the not so distant past of 2013, the story follows Sean who is returning home after university, the first in his family to attend such an institution, and what happens after one fateful night.

Michael, 33, grew up in west Belfast and is currently fiction editor of literary magazine ‘The Tangerine’.

‘Close To Home’ began with his PhD.

“I started writing the book in 2016. The initial idea came from a letter a friend of mine asked me to write, as a kind of exercise. I was struggling to put words together and he thought this would get me out of my own way,” Michael said.

" ‘Start at any point in your life and go from there’, he said, and so I did. I sat at my desk and wrote this letter every day and the letter got longer and longer.”

Waterstones describe the novel as “a striking tale of poverty, love and trauma told through the lens of two working class brothers in post-conflict Belfast.”

Michael found the backdrop of Belfast as a place he could turn to time and time again.

“Someone recently described Belfast as being a bipolar city, and I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. Typographically, it’s a complex patchwork of districts, and each district has its own cultural identity, its own history. I like that. It gives you a lot to draw from, particularly when you’re from somewhere like west Belfast.

"I could write about west Belfast for the rest of my life and not even scratch the surface.

"It’s a difficult city to love though. It’s a segregated city, both along religious and class lines, unless you live in a more affluent area, in which case religious differences magically fall away.

"It’s also a city for private developers. They’re buying up huge swathes of land in the city centre and allowing it to fester and decay. That makes me angry, and often anger is a good place to start from, at least when it comes to writing. Although you can’t let that anger infect your work. You have to stand back a little and let the characters do the feeling. Not you.

"You’re just there to make sure the things they think and feel ring true.”

The novel has received some fantastic reviews including one from the acclaimed Russell T. Davies who called the novel “a beautiful, rich, tough, kind portrait of a life in the balance”.

Autobiographical in nature, the story was one Michael felt needed to be written.

"It was the book I had to write,” he said. “For me, it’s not really a case of picking and choosing. You have an idea, or an image, and you run with it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

"After about three months, I had a 60,000 word manuscript. It was highly confessional and a bit of a mess, but there was a vague enough narrative running through it. The rest of the process of writing became about extracting a story from that mess. That was the tricky part. I had to find the right distance from the material I was writing about, and then I decided that sticking to the facts was hampering me, so I changed tact.

"I went from writing a memoir to fiction, and that opened up all sorts of possibilities for what the book could be.”

When it comes to navigating the novel’s success, Michael is letting it all slowly sink in.

“It’s a little early to call it a success, I think, but the sprinkle of praise I’ve had has been lovely, really, and also kind of surreal.

"Part of me doesn’t believe any of it. I’m still waiting for someone to jump out from behind the curtain and shout something like ‘ah ha, got you! Your book’s rubbish!’

"If I’m honest though, I’m happy it’s finding its way into people’s hands. That’s all that matters really; allowing people to have their own relationship with the book. I’ve done the hard part, now I have to let it go and find its own way.”