Gavin is spending the quarantine in a small flat in south Dublin with his eighty-year-old mother, whose mind is slowly slipping away. He has lived most of his adult life abroad and has returned home to care for her and to write a novel. But he finds that all he can write about is her.
Cells cuts to the chase with bruising yet invigorating clarity. Yes, it remorselessly hangs out a family’s dirty laundry, but it’s also a sharp piece of social and cultural analysis, not to mention a laying bare of the mysterious impulses behind the wish to write.
... eviscerating ... a riveting, deeply considered memoir, an ode to his mother that is also an exploration of his upbringing and the traumas he endured ... Past and present timelines are related with flair and precision ... From the wonderful prologue that will instantly hook readers, to the many surprising twists introduced without fanfare throughout the book, Cells is an excavation of the past by a writer who knows exactly what he’s doing.
... a raw and deeply affecting memoir ... In peeling back the layers of familial dysfunction, McCrea doesn’t shrink from his own ugly moments ... Though he loses focus with diversions into Jungian theory and exhaustive (and exhausting) breakdowns of his dreams, the author’s account of his trauma, which continues into adulthood with an HIV diagnosis and another shocking homophobic attack, is vividly drawn.
