The Home Scar

Critics Review

• A powerful story about legacy and loss and the possibility of reconciliation

  Irish Times

• Her beautifully simple style belies psychological complexity . . . and her tone is wryly accepting

  Big Issue

• Quiet and bleakly beautiful . . . like the siblings and Ireland, it will leave a permanent mark on those who venture into its depths

  Buzz

• Picks at the wounds only a mother can inflict . . . ambitious . . . intricate

  Sunday Independent

• An exceptional novel about a brother and sister returning to the west of Ireland and to a summer of their past.

  Sunday Independent

• MacMahon writes with such beautiful simplicity, conjuring real and complex people straight off the page . . . subtle and authentic

  Claire Fuller

• Thoughtful, understated . . . it has a quiet power

  Irish Independent

• Wonderful

  RTÉ

• A gorgeous story of sibling love. It reads like a psychological adventure story into memory

  Louise Nealon

• A spell-binding story of inherited grief and the unbreakable bond between siblings as they unpick memories of their shared past . . . [MacMahon’s] characters feel authentic and relatable for all their flaws

  Aingeala Flannery

• Such a treat . . . another stunner from Kathleen MacMahon

  Henrietta McKervey

• With her usual effortless writing style and ability to make characters pop off the page, [The Home Scar] is a moving read

  Woman's Way

• An intriguing, meticulous and generation-spanning story of love, loss and healing

  Ed O'Loughlin

• Kathleen MacMahon’s subject is memory itself: how we remember – and the impact upon our future lives when our memories deceive us. Compassionate and poignant, The Home Scar is a work of considerable moral power

  Neil Hegarty

• A very grown-up novel about life and love, of course, and above all, the repercussions of a disrupted childhood . . . a real tour de force

  Christine Dwyer Hickey

• The Home Scar once again displays Kathleen MacMahon’s gimlet-eyed understanding of grown-up frailty

  Hilary Fannin

• A delight – I loved every word of it

  Catherine Dunne

• An understated, powerful read.

  Irish Examiner

• [MacMahon’s] exploration of connection, to each other and the ones we’ve lost, is . . . sensitively done and wrapped in the rich storytelling that has made her a notable name in Irish literature

  RTÉ Guide

• A love story to the west of Ireland as much as it is a family mystery, this beautifully written novel will entrance anyone who has memories of childhood holidays spent in the area.

  Sunday Independent

• MacMahon’s fourth novel … is another eloquently written and elegantly shaped novel that lays bare those scars that many of us carry and cover.

  RTÉ Guide

• An exceptional novel by one of Ireland’s foremost literary talents. A book not to be missed

  Anne Griffin

• One of Ireland’s finest twenty-first century writers

  Margaret Madden