'Using the fine brushstrokes of his relationship with his mother, Gavin McCrea creates a remarkable self-portrait which becomes, then, a portrait of our times. This memoir will comfortably sit alongside other great Irish memoirs of recent decades, not least the work of Nuala O'Faolain, Hugo Hamilton, and John McGahern. This is a brave book, beautifully written, fearless, vulnerable, self-aware, honest, and not without moments of intimate levity. McCrea is prepared to express his rage at how the world has unfurled around him, but he does so with delicacy and love and a daring sense of invention.'
- Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon
'A brave, raw, visceral memoir told with such acuity, insight, and compassion, I could barely put it down. Gavin McCrea's unflinching mapping of his family's struggles, his own journey towards individuation and self-realisation, as well as his deep, conflicted love for his mother, is beautifully rendered, painful, and real. A stunning, memorable read.'
- Lisa Harding, author of Bright Burning Things
'This is a book that brims with stored-up pain - and with a very particular kind of courage. For all its dark and sometimes brutal honesty, what the reader is going to remember here is the way that McCrea's prose fights on through his hurt to bring home pages that seem lit from within by love and beauty. A memoir that is as rewarding as it is undoubtedly challenging.'
- Neil Bartlett, author of Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall and Address Book
'Cells is a compulsive tidal force of a book: detailed, vulnerable, and brave, it pulled me in swiftly and held me to the very end.'
- Sean Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide
'Reading Cells, I was struck by McCrea's generosity in interrogating personal histories as they relate to wider familial and social systems. Contemplating devotion and loss with revolutionary sensitivity, what results is a stunning work of emotion-mapping. Cells is a dazzling exploration of nuance; pondering the formative threads that piece together the self, sewing a new lineage of interconnectedness towards acceptance.'
- Peter Scalpello, author of Limbic