Home Stretch by Graham Norton
Guilt and longing can be passed down down the centuries, but heart secrets can never truly be forgotten.
A little Irish community is getting ready for a wedding in 1987. A group of youthful friends, including the bride and groom, drive to the beach the day before the wedding. There is a mishap. Three are slain, but three are still alive.
The families’ lives are upended, and the divisions among them are felt across the little community. Connor is one of the survivors. Yet continuing to be surrounded by the irate and the bereaved is almost as difficult as dealing with the guilt of having been the driver. He takes his secrets with him as he flees the only location he is familiar with to start a new life.
Home Stretch by Graham Norton
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After visiting Liverpool and London, he establishes a sort of home in New York. The city offers protection and opportunity to the displaced, and it is here that Connor can forget his past and start over. But, those who were left behind are haunted by unsaid longings and sorrows that cannot be ignored. Soon enough, Connor will have to face his history. Graham Norton’s potent and current tale of exile and return reveals his acute awareness of the destructive effects that stigma and concealment can have.
Graham Norton, a British television personality, has written a tender coming-of-age novel about a group of families whose paths cross when a terrible catastrophe takes place in their sleepy Irish village. When lives are torn apart by the disaster, it seems that the connected secrets that have been kept hidden are doing even more harm.
The day before the two of them get married, a group of young adults decide to visit the beach. Yet the union won’t take place. All of their lives will be destroyed in a tragic vehicle accident. 3 of them pass away. The town’s anger is directed towards the car’s driver, Connor, as they grieve for the deceased.
Connor’s parents decide to send him away to work in Liverpool in the hopes that he will return when the shock wears off because they are unable to bear this dreadful load on their family and their kid. They have no idea that it will take years for them to even learn that he is still alive.
Connor is placed in a job and apartment with strangers despite the fact that he has secrets he can never reveal. Then, as a result of anything that occurs to him, he is abandoned on the streets and feels guilty and undeserving of simply being alive. The remainder of his life is spent jogging. Escaping from the accident, his life, himself, and the shame he believes he is bringing on his family.
Ellen has married one of the accident survivors as Connor’s parents give up hope of ever seeing their son again. She understands how complicated this marriage is. After Connor finds his way to living in New York, he is unaware of the circumstances back home. But once more, a chance encounter with a total stranger will alter his life irrevocably. He will once more be forced to choose between sharing some of his long-buried secrets and keeping others to himself.
