Reviews – Close Your Eyes
“A brave, sensitive, painful novel, Close Your Eyes is an alternative history of the last forty years, an exploration of the damage idealistic parents can do to their children and a reminder that it is sometimes the peolpe who are absent who really fill out lives.”
JAMES ROBERTSON, award of And The Land Lay Still.
‘Beautiful. Haunting. If Ewan Morrison was a woman, Close Your Eyes would be destined for the Orange Prize shortlist.’
HELEN WALSH, author of BRASS.
”An insightful tale of a brave new world revisited.” THE SUNDAY TIMES
”Morrison inhabits his female characters with impressive skill, and his sharp portrayal of the commune’s evolution from hippy enclave to capitalist self-help business makes what is a potentially depressing novel a riveting read.” THE OBSERVER
“The whole of Close Your Eyes is an admirable and intimate wrestling with the damages incurred by trying to heal, as Adorno once called modernity, “a damaged life….a wise, emotionally literate gauge of the burdens – and blarney – of alternative living should buy it immediately.” Pat Kane. THE INDEPENDENT.
“Morrison’s most accomplished book yet….a complex, thought-provoking and deeply ambitious book, and one that Morrison, now an exceedingly versatile writer, pulls off triumphantly.”
MALCOLM FORBES, THE HERALD. FULL REVIEW
‘Mesmerising. Disturbing. Outstanding. Written with exquisite emotional perception, this is a tour de force from Morrison – the kind of book which comes along rarely but lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned.’
DAILY RECORD
”Close Your Eyes is by far his most accomplished novel, an intense account of a girl’s upbringing in a Scottish Highland commune…Switching between two timelines, this is both a lyrical account of motherhood and an astute piece of commentary on the ways in which our society and our families have changed irrevocably over the last 40 years. To Pack all that stuff into a deeply personal tale that keeps you turning the pages is a testament to Morrison’s skill as a writer. Few Male writers manage to tap into the emotional well as deeply as Morrison does, yet he has a clearer eye for the bigger picture and the writerly craft at his disposal to deliver a piercing critique of the world we live in. Morally complex, emotionally resonant – Close Your Eyes is a fine, fine piece of work.
THE BIG ISSUE. Doug Johnstone.
”One of the successes of the book is Morrison’s convincing use of a female narrator. He writes about breastfeeding and motherhood in a completely natural way and the reader forgets the author is male. Yet Rowan is not just a woman, she is everyman, anyone who has struggled with depression, disappointment, abandonment and disillusion. Close Your Eyes is yet another step on Morrison’s journey to understand what makes society tick and take a close look at what happens when people do close their eyes. Highlights include the page-turning pleasure of a well-turned plot, Morrison’s skilful crafting of character and dialogue and his confident handling of stylistic techniques. There is betrayal, passion, idealism and defeat, the triumphs of human behaviour as well as its petty, craven failures as his utopia loses its ideals in order to survive. Ultimately, there is hope, however, as Rowan comes to terms with her past and reconnects with both her mother’s memory and her own child, and the reader is left to conclude that ultimately, a mother’s love conquers all.”
THE SCOTSMAN.
‘Morrison is unsparing in the emotional ordeal he inflicts on both his protagonist and the reader, but his novel is always acutely and convincingly observed. It’s a telling and powerful study of the intersection between the political and personal.’
METRO. 4 stars
“Often the sense of impending disaster makes you sick with nervous tension. At other times, Morrison creates calm from the most unlikely circumstances. In a book that is somewhere between Esther Freud’s Hideous Kinky and Jez Butterworth’s play Jerusalem, Morrison creates something both uncomfortable and beautiful to read”.
Welovethisbook.com FULL REVIEW
‘A rivetting Well told tale.”
Brian Agee. THE SKINNY. 4 stars.
“Ewan Morrison has had a good year. His last book delighted the critics and the omens for his new novel, loosely based on his childhood growing up with hippie parents, are looking equally good.
For a while, he says, he felt he was being pigeonholed as someone who only wrote about sex, and certainly the three novels that made his name – Swing, Distance and Ménage – had a whiff of scandal about them.
But in May, in Tales From The Mall, he struck out in a new direction, mixing up fiction with reportage, journalism and sociology in an innovative look at consumer culture. And in his new novel, Close Your Eyes, he is playing with form again: in a novel that takes a hard look about the realities and consequences of Highland hippiedom, the narrative encompasses song lyrics, New Age slang, and parenting manuals.” JANET CHRISTY. THE SCOTSMAN
“Often the sense of impending disaster makes you sick with nervous tension. At other times, Morrison creates calm from the most unlikely circumstances. In a book that is somewhere between Esther Freud’s Hideous Kinky and Jez Butterworth’s play Jerusalem, Morrison creates something both uncomfortable and beautiful to read”.
WE LOVE THIS BOOK
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“Morrison’s most accomplished book yet….a complex, thought-provoking and deeply ambitious book, and one that Morrison, now an exceedingly versatile writer, pulls off triumphantly.”
MALCOLM FORBES, THE HERALD
