Sean Maguire returns home to his working-class neighborhood in Belfast after studying literature in Liverpool. All that awaits him is a broken family, a lonely mother, a brother who wants to help him but who has trouble getting by, between alcohol, drugs and violence which will also be his lot. He works in a bar to make ends meet, squats in an apartment with his childhood friend Ryan, finds a childhood sweetheart, the beautiful Mairéad, who dreams of art and a new life in Berlin. Sean wanders between odd jobs and random places, lets himself slide down a steep slope, until he violently hits a random person. He will be sentenced to community service and to pay a fine too high for someone without much resources who gets by by petty cheating. Will he be able to get out of it? Through this portrait of a young man lost between his roots – one could say his “background” and his hopes – Michel Magee paints a damning portrait of Northern Ireland, scarred by the traces of the civil war, the contempt of England, the memory of the hero Bobby Sands. It is at once grey, bitter, vengeful but full of hope, written with confidence by a first-time novelist, already the author of several short stories, who breathes his faith into this dark and angry tale.
Return to Belfast, by Michael Magee, translated from English by Paul Matthieu (Albin Michel, 432 pages, €22.90)
