Adrian Dooley's Reviews > Home Stretch

The story of a group of young friends in a small town in Cork Ireland. Set in the late 80s, the friends who are in their late teens/early 20s are involved in a car crash. Three of them lose their lives and the apparent young driver of the car Connor has to leave Ireland for Liverpool to work on a building site as he is blamed for the huge tragedy that has befallen the small town.
He eventually moves to London where he becomes comfortable in his own skin for the first time, as an open gay man. Something he wouldn’t dream of making public back home in 80s Ireland.

As time goes by, Connor has no contact with his family, trying to forget the events of that tragic day and the way that everyone blamed him and brought shame on his family.
Fast forward and Connor has moved to New York. 25 years have passed and Conor has never returned home or contacted his family except for one brief postcard, but a chance meeting will bring back all those memories and force him to decide whether to face up to the aftermath of that day and return home to see his family.
We also have the characters in the towns story through the years. Connors family, the families of the deceased, the survivors.

I know Graham Norton as a tv presenter, an actor and a talk show host. I’m aware that he has published some novels in the last few years but this is the first one I have read and it was enjoyable overall. Not quite a slow burner but the more I read it the more I enjoyed it.

I did find the first few chapters nearly unreadable as the author tries to introduce a huge cast of characters in a very short space of time. I mean, maybe just a page to introduce someone and then onto someone else. It wasn’t a good start for me and I really didn’t enjoy the first few chapters at all.
However as the book went on it found its feet and rhythm and I was eventually all in.
It hops back and forward a lot from character to character and back and forth in time. It worked well for the most part, although I did find the odd time that you were reading a very important part of the book that needed some time to develop but was cut short and we moved onto someone else.

Minor criticisms aside, this is a very well written book and a very enjoyable read. Some really meaty characters to get you teeth into and some minor ones that are more of a distraction than adding anything really to the story.

It is essentially the story of a small town tragedy and the deceit and lies around it. A story about a young mans sexuality and finding himself. A story of that hidden acceptance we sometimes let creep up on us in life and how time can pass in the blink of an eye. As I said I was unsure about it at the start but by the end I had thoroughly enjoyed it. If you start this and done take to it in the beginning, stick with it and it will pay off.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Hodder & Stoughton and Graham Norton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.