sometimes you can do it, the thing you've been wanting for years-- you can get away, go somewhere new, be someone else, meet new people. but sometimes you have to come back, and nothing feels the same. at that point, home is not home anymore-- it is just a place you are living, where you used to be someone but are now someone else. this is Sean Maguire's dilemma. after attending university at Liverpool, far from his native Belfast, he finally tasted freedom. but university ended, and now he is stranded back in his hometown, and his English degree seems useless.

this trapped feeling builds and builds. after he punches a guy at a party, Sean then has to reckon with himself in a way he has never had to before.

Close to Home is a story that meanders through Sean's life as he tries to find footing in a world that keeps working-class young men like him down. he struggles with employment, friends, drugs, violence, family--and through it all the pain of Ireland's transgenerational trauma looms overhead like an overcast sky.

the entire narrative is tinged with hurt. each friend of Sean's has their own troubles, and so does Sean, himself. Sean isn't able to fully separate himself from all the bad things in his life, and it doesn't even seem like he really wants to. he knows he should ditch his friends, stop trying to find his absent father, and help his ailing brother--but he can't. he doesn't know how. and this tragedy is the current with which the story flows.

Sean doesn't fit in anywhere. all he wants is to feel at home. as to what home really is... that's a question Sean can't seem to answer.