Home Stretch

1987 and in a small town in the Irish countryside there is a terrible car accident, three young people are killed, one left paralysed and two walk away. Connor, the driver, is sent for trial and given a suspended sentence but the shame makes his parents send him to England to escape. His sister marries the other survivor, the local doctor's son, and settles into domestic frustration. Over time Connor loses touch with his family and lives his own life first in London and then New York. However when a chance remark decades later puts a new complexion on the crash it is time for family secrets to be shared.
This is such a gentle and heartwarming book despite the very adult themes and I loved it. Norton is turning out to be a solid author and his books go from strength to strength. Here the shame of the crash is actually turned into a view on Irish society's changing attitudes to homosexuality and that moves the book from being merely entertaining to having something of substance behind it. ( )

Home Stretch is a compelling and poignant novel from Graham Norton.

When a tragic single car accident takes the life of three young adults in the small Irish village, the lives of the three survivors, and their family’s, are forever changed.

“None of us are just the worst thing we ever did.”

With sensitivity and compassion, Norton explores the themes of loss, stigma, longing, betrayal, and self discovery as his characters lives unfold. The narrative is shared by several characters but the focus is on Connor, the admitted driver. Crushed by the community’s grief and anger, and his own shameful secrets, Connor leaves home for a fresh start. Cutting himself off from his family, Connor’s journey takes him to England and then America, but he remains haunted by the tragedy.

“This is what homecoming meant. Arriving in a place to discover you’re fluent in a language you’d forgotten you ever knew.”

The plot is multilayered and thoughtful, shifting between past and present, it begins in 1987 and ends in the present. It’s decades before Connor finds the emotional strength to confront the past, spurred on by a chance meeting with a nephew he never even knew he had. As he reconnects with all that he left behind, assumptions are challenged and secrets are outed.

Not at all what I expected from what I know of Norton’s public persona, with its profound themes, authentic characters, and engaging prose, Home Stretch is an absorbing and thought provoking story. ( )