'Flayingly authentic and sensationally compelling...One of the best books of the year.'

      --Anthony Cummins, THE OBSERVER

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'Cells is a raw, throbbing thing; the literary equivalent of an open wound, but one that's been cauterised by a highly skilled surgeon...the story of the making of an acutely talented writer...One of the very best, most authentic, beautiful, and brutal depictions of a deep and abiding, albeit imperfect love between a son and his mother.'

      --Lucy Scholes, THE TELEGRAPH

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'Raw and deeply affecting.'

      --Fiona Buckley, THE GUARDIAN

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'A heart-stopping excavation of the self...Cells will heighten the capacity for empathy in all who read it. Not least of all, empathy for the self.'

      --Helen Cullen, THE IRISH TIMES

 

'Beautifully written, fearless, vulnerable, self-aware...Cells will comfortably sit alongside other great Irish memoirs by Nuala O'Faolain and John McGahern.'

      --Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon

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'Both brutal and tender in its depiction of the relationships that shape a self. Leading the reader through moments of darkness and of luminosity alike, this is a work of intellect and eloquence, but also a work of great heart.'

      --Doireann Ní Gríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

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'With Cells, McCrea has established himself as one of Ireland’s finest writers.’

      --Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son

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