Close Your Eyes

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"...anyone wanting to read a wise, emotionally literate gauge of the burdens - and blarney - of alternative living should buy it immediately.

Pat Kane, Independent

In Close Your Eyes, Ewan Morrison carries off the compelling second-person voice brilliantly...the novel is beautifully set to a soundtrack of Rowan’s childhood.

Times Literary Supplement

Beautiful. Haunting. If Ewan Morrison was a woman, Close Your Eyes would be destined for the Orange Prize shortlist.

Helen Walsh

A novel that deals with post-natal depression that is both sensitive and unflinchingly honest, Morrison's story explores the bond and limits of motherhood

Stylist

An insightful tale of a brave new world revisited.

Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

A brave, sensitive, painful novel, Close Your Eyes is an alternative history of the last forty years, an exploration of the damage idealistic, well-intentioned parents can do to their children, and a reminder that it is sometimes the people who are absent who really fill our lives.

James Robertson

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 (4 stars).

Ben Felsenburg, Metro

Admirable and intimate.

Pat Kane, Independent

Told with impressive skill... a riveting read.

Corinne Jones, Observer

A fearsome read, it latches on and won’t let go.

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

This is more than a psychological novel – it’s a page-turning mystery too.

William Leith, Evening Standard

Intense and brilliantly sustained, this is a powerful, moving exploration of New Age life.

Jane Housham, Guardian

Gripping.

Big Issue in the North

Close Your Eyes is an astonishing book... It takes us right to the heart of the turbulent social changes that defined our last quarter century and it is a revealing, honest, searing novel about mothers and children, about what it means to be part of a family. The story, the writing, the moral intelligence: all of it is a knock out.

Christos Tsiolkas, author of 'The Slap'

Fantastic…skillfully done… A rivetingly, well-told tale (4 stars).

The Skinny

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, Glasgow Herald

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.

Janet Christie, Scotland on Sunday

Morally complex, emotionally resonant – Close Your Eyes is a fine, fine piece of work.

Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

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

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

This week we’re devouring Ewan Morrison’s new novel.

Herald Magazine

Strange and beautiful.

Laura Marney, Herald

I found this a really gripping, moving read, brilliantly told in the first and second person

Tam Dean Burn, Edinburgh Evening News