Sean Hewitt’s “Open Heaven” is very special.
I’m passionate about it. It’s truly an astonishing story — one of the best coming of age (queer) books I’ve ever read….a smashing hit debut novel.
It’s desperately sad — yet ‘deep-in-your-bones’-alluring-captivating-emotional-thought-provoking-and gorgeously-poetically-written debut novels to come out in years. It deserves awards. It’s what classic books are made of. In my opinion, it’s a book that could be studied….(as to why it’s so fantastic for one thing).
ALL TYPE OF READERS - FROM EVERY GENRE- EVERY AGE - will be taken by this story!
I predict “Open Heaven” will become a great classic. It’s a coming-of-age phenomenon. It has all the enduring qualities that sustain relevance across generations throughout different eras. It’s ‘that’ extraordinary.
It’s not a book that should -by any means- slip through the cracks.
Also…
….It’s just one of those books I can’t stop thinking about.

The story is set in a remote village in North England. It takes place over one year where James Legh (age 16), up with his parents and younger brother, Eddie. (age 5).

With the Prologue set in 2022, we learn from James (a Librarian-in his 30’s), — who hasn’t been back to his hometown village (Thornmere) in twenty years — that he was afraid it would be to painful to visit old memories of home.
“I had thought it would be painful to be reminded, but what I felt instead was a sort of collapse in time, or a possibility: a curious but strong sense that my old life might still exist there, that if I went back, I might find those people, that summer, all going on their still, unharmed and unchanged”.
“When my marriage fell apart, my husband said that he had realized I could love him, but not desire him, and the moment he said those words, I knew they were true. It was like my whole self had been exposed as a fraud, and I broke down, because I did not know how I had got here, and I thought that I had wasted my life”.
“I kept coming back to Thornmere, to my family and, as usual, to Luke. It was twenty years since I had seen him, and nearly as long since I had been back to the village, but I had thought about him every day of my life”.
“He had transcended himself in my life, and had become the pattern of all my subsequent longings. Every time I looked into a lover’s eyes — even, I think, my husband‘s eyes — I wanted to see Luke’s eyes, green and urgent, holding me”.

An adventure of sorts follows through the seasons …. It’s a year I’ll remember for a long time.
James - newly having come-out to his parents - was obsessively in love with Luke, a new kid in town (staying for one year with his aunt and uncle on their farm).
Luke was slightly older than James. Their characteristics were quite different (in personality, physically and emotionally)
Luke and James were both from families with hardships (also quite different) …..very different types of turmoil.

I refuse to give the highly interesting storytelling away …. but I will share a few general aspects that I found meaningful to contemplate. When a teenager has desires for independence, and/or risk-taking tendencies along with identity exploration, peer pressure sensitivities, and social pressures…..
‘while’ their immediate family (parents, siblings), are also facing hardships …..(which seems to me to be quite common), …..it’s no wonder our lives are endlessly introspective….often thinking deeply about the meaning and fragility of everything.

Sean Hewitt is a poet, lecturer, and literary critic. This was my first experience reading his work. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.

I’ll leave a few non-spoiler excepts - simply to show-off Hewitt’s beautiful prose.

“Part of me was still a child, reaching for her whenever I felt wounded or alone, but there was another part, too, which recoiled from the way she looked at me, as though she could see right through me. In her eyes, I saw my own transparency, as if she had exposed me, and so there was a streak of cruelty in what I felt for her in that moment. I saw that she knew me, and some frightened part of my personality had to insist that she didnt”.

“There was rubbish under the viaduct, and the concrete on the banks of the arches was patterned in hexagons where debris and crisp packets had been blown and started to turn pale. There was a slight breeze under here, as if the cold air was funneling through to the fields and sunlight behind me. The breeze tugged lethargically at the litter so, along with the rumble of the cars above, there was the occasional tinny sound of an empty can being ushered along the tarmac. I glanced up at those dark eaves, and the passageway where the road workers might go, and I noticed a tent up there, a pile of bottles, a sleeping bag unravelled and dirty across the top of the concrete stairs”.

“I didn’t know how to live my life anymore, I didn’t know how to choose between this delicate, innocent world, and the future I was driving myself headlong into”.

An absolute beautiful, intimate, unsparingly insightful account of longing, loneliness, desire, and love .

At its core, *Open, Heaven* serves as an exploration of boyhood, with its many tensions and alienations. These are further complicated by the protagonist’s queerness, which emerges despite the barren landscape it springs from. But while guilt and shame have long been woven into queer narratives because of historical oppression, here they serve less as an honest reckoning with internal conflict and more as a reinforcement of the idea that queerness is inseparable from suffering. The novel’s rural small-town setting justifies their presence to some degree, but their stifling weight feels more like an inevitability than an inquiry.

And though Hewitt’s language has proven capable of sublime acrobatics in his past works, here it moves at an even pace, focused solely on its destination. It halts often, circling back on itself, lingering over past ruminations, whether relevant or not. This, inevitably, disrupts its flow. Similarly, the prose lays thoughts bare, stripped of ambiguity or allure, flattening every opportunity for sensory or intellectual engagement.

The reader is kept firmly at a distance, unable to explore or interpret beyond what is dictated. Step by step, they are led through a story of uneasy obsession, as though on a leash. But though it fronts as love, no true feeling takes hold in *Open, Heaven.* Love, guilt, appreciation, dread—none find respite in the words or deeds of the protagonist, a self-proclaimed fantasist. And none extend to his ailing brother or parents, though all three spend the length of the novel constructing bridges from the feeble materials at their disposal.

Similarly, James' fixation on Luke, the slightly older boy who unsettles him, is driven more by projection than by any genuine connection. His intense focus on Luke’s physiology, including the warmth of his spittle, gives their dynamic a clinical, almost detached quality. This detachment extends to James’ own body: the yeasty smells of his want are described with a blunt frankness that feels uncomfortably intimate, as though the rawness of his physicality lacks the softening lens of self-awareness.

But unlike the visceral, painful exploration of desire, friendship, and sexuality in Keith Hale’s *Clicking Beat on the Brink of Nada,* where emotions are presented as complex, disjointed, and deeply felt, James’ feelings for Luke exist more as untouchable archetypes. Despite the circular trajectory of his thoughts, they remain insubstantial, too distant to truly grasp or connect with.

The examination of the human psyche, with its many flaws and complexities, is deserving of nothing but praise. However, when judging a novel’s appeal, readability remains an unforgiving metric. Ultimately, the world of *Open, Heaven* feels too flat, and its quiet emotions too detached from existence, to offer a truly meaningful exploration.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Please keep in mind the following content warning: Sexual Content, Homophobia, Mental Illness, and Toxic Relationship.

This was a good book, the writing was great and the themes explored were interesting, however, I always struggle with literary fiction. Sometimes I find them too sad, too realistic, when I just want some escapism. However, some of my favourite books are literary fiction and very depressing (Giovanni's Room comes to mind), so what was different about this book? Ultimately, I didn't connect with the characters as I hoped.

James as a character was quite relatable at times. I too know what it's like growing up as queer in a small town and the loneliness that comes with it, even though I was still in the closet and far from the only queer kid there. But while I didn't hate his character, I had trouble finding him interesting. While normally I prefer likeable characters, I don't always have to as long as they're interesting.

I do think this book did a great job sometimes how we isolate ourselves even more when we're lonely and the dangers of giving all ourselves for love. It was painful to see James isolate himself from others the more he became obsessed with Luke. The setting and the writing were beautiful, it was easy to feel like I was right there in a small Irish village, which is honestly what carries most of the rating. It makes me want to search for more books set in villages.

While this book wasn't exactly the right fit for me, I can see someone who is into literary fiction way more than me enjoying this book.

An absolutely beautiful book. I felt the angst and confusion, joy and deep need that James experiences as he falls in love and also tries to find independence from his family. Wanting to belong, yet needing to be his own person. It’s so vivid and so very human and relatable. Set in a small town in Ireland in the 1990s. Highly recommend.
Read an e-ARC provided by NetGalley.

Many thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me this ARC.
The language was beautiful, replete with turns of phrase and images that twisted around in my mind begging to be examined more closely. Sean Hewitt is, without a doubt, a poet. Unfortunately for me, I found the poetic language a bit distracting for the story. I feel bad saying that, but in my honest experience the plot points kind of glided off my brain and I kept having to reread passages, like the language was sapping strength from the narrative.

well i did not expect to get as emotional as i did for this book! there's so many precious themes explored in this story that i felt so connected too such as what it feels like to grow up queer and isolated and with a growing urge to just get away from everything. it's all written so well and deserves to be applauded for it's tender and real approach. there's just something about reading a book where you can relate so strongly to the main character that makes it all the more worthwhile. broke my heart and stitched it right back up. super thankful to have received the arc for this story and i hope it's enjoyed by many others as well.

Open, Heaven is a beautifully written book that explores the queer teenage experience. It opens with an adult James returning to his hometown after quite a few years and then flashes back to 16-year-old James' first experience truly yearning for —Luke, whose own tragic circumstances have sent him to James' town. The writing is gorgeous and paints a vivid and, at times, haunting picture of a gay teenager coming of age in a small town.

This book is definitely worth the read, and is a good reminder that your history matters, even as it falls further in the rearview mirror.

Note: I received a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.

very very poetic and even more immersive than it is poetic. it absorbs you into its little world and never lets you go. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

This was a lovely novel about youth that truly shone. The writing was the best thing about it although the story was good too. Than you to Netgalley and the publisher

Beautiful and poetic writing. This is my second book by Sean Hewitt and it was just as good as the first. The writing is emotional and poignant.

This book was a complete emotional gut punch. It reminded me of the vibes of Maurice and Call Me By Your Name, bittersweet and with a sad ending that will make you cry.

This book could also be subtitled "gay teenaged yearning" and I do mean YEARNING with a heavy dose of PINING. But in a good way, I thought, if you have the emotional capacity for it.

James, picking up the pieces of his life after his divorce, in which his husband said James could love him but never desire him (gah, gut punch level foreshadowing) revisits his childhood home, where he reminisces about the heartache-filled summer of his 16th year. He was working as a milk delivery boy and harboring a crush for a straight neighbor boy, Luke, that turns into limerence, a blindingly intense obsessive love that will ruin James's life.

James and Luke are both friendless and boys who are different from other boys in their small, cloistered country town. James is different because he is openly gay and isolated from the loneliness of that in this place, and Luke because he comes from a family of lowlifes. They form an emotional bond that transcends friendship, as James painfully learns the difference between platonic and romantic love. Plagued by will-they won't-they throughout the book, I dearly wished that Luke had been bisexual. But this was a historical time period where it was only acknowledged that you were gay or straight, and if you were gay you were ostracized and emasculated.

So yes, another sad story for sad gay boys but I thought it was heartbreaking, intense with a languid pace, and bittersweet, with absolutely beautiful prose. It was a short book that didn't need to be any longer about a friendship and a moment in time that changed one life forever, without any hopeful hints at the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

an incredibly tender account of a queer boy's coming-of-age and coming to the self. hewitt has a remarkable way with words; poets always find a way to write the most compassionate and heart-wrenching literary fiction and Open, Heaven is no exception. readers are blessed with following james as he navigates identity and love. as i write this review, i keep reverted back to wanted to call it tender. tender, tender, tender, yes, but also heart breaking and beautiful and lustful, eliciting feelings of longing and awe and sadness. 10/10 would recommend.

Open, Heaven may be the most accurate depiction of a queer coming of age I’ve read in quite a while. The embarrassing yearning and grey areas you enter with a first real, same-sex crush. Especially with a community like James’, not outwardly disparaging but quiet and noncommittal in their support.

Not to mention the prose was beautiful. I love when poets write novels. You can tell how much thought goes into every sentence. I’m so excited for this to hit shelves so I can talk about it with my friends.

Thank you Knopf and Netgalley for the eARC!

Open, Heaven is essentially Sean Hewitt splitting open the chest of queer youth and showing us the struggle of being young, lost and in love.

James is sixteen and lives in a small, nowhere place that isn't very exciting. He helps out on a milk route for pocket change to cover his school dinners and is friends with girls because the boys treat him differently (because of his nature of being or his sexuality or a combination of the two - people are cruel) until he isn't. Shy, isolated, feeling alone, James stumbles upon a friendship in Luke who is spending a year on the farm with his aunt and uncle because his mother has moved away to be with a man and his father is in jail.

To James, Luke is everything.

Open, Heaven is an introspective look at deep yearning and the idea of love, sex and sexuality in the confusing time that is adolescence. James seems almost ashamed of everything he feels and does regarding his sexuality and it's sad.

The book itself is written beautifully but it does leave you wanting for more. There aren't a lot of answers to a lot of questions that inevitably arrive through reading but at the same time - that's just how life is. There aren't always answers. This is a glimpse, a single year, and not everything ends wrapped neatly in a bow. This certainly doesn't. As a reader, I obviously wanted more but I'm also okay that I didn't get it because that's just how things are sometimes.

Overall, Open, Heaven is beautiful and encapsulates yearning and desire and shame in such a poetic way.

I requested and received an eARC of Open Heaven by Seán Hewitt via NetGalley. James is a sheltered and shy sixteen-year-old, growing up in the North of England. When he comes out, he begin to feel the distance widening between him and his family. He feels stifled by the rural community he has grown up in and dreams of a life where he feels he belongs. James is introduced to Luke through a job his father procured for him as a salve for his loneliness. Luke is older with a reputation for trouble, but James finds himself drawn to the boy's beauty and charisma. Beneath the surface, Luke is carrying pain of his own after being abandoned by his family.

Hewitt perfectly captures what it means to be young and gay. The uncertainty that comes along with it, the feeling of being isolated within our desires. There’s this really terrific passage in which James muses about the way he transposes his feelings on to unsuspecting boys, spinning entire fantasies around their beings, that really resonated with me and my own experiences as a gay teenager. He also contemplates his willingness to conform to whatever shape their desire takes, hitting on this idea of how gay men (and queer folk) are made to negotiate their own happiness in a world set against them. Open Heaven was full of familiar sentiments expressed in lyrical language that made me want to sink into this book and enjoy every page.

The writing in Open Heaven is evocative and rich, Hewitt takes queer teenage angst and turns it into something exquisite and visceral. The beauty and the pain of first love seem to live within the pages of this novel, often leading my heart to ache for James. The relationships in this novel, between James and his little brother, James and his mother, James and Luke, are all so wonderfully done. I didn’t anticipate loving this book quite as much as I did, but man did it cause some cracks in my heart. I think most gay men have experienced some version of James’ summer in Open Heaven and having that experience dissected and understood in such a tender and thoughtful manner was very moving.

A gorgeous debut! The complexity of queerness and attraction is a hard experience to articulate, but Sean Hewitt does an exceptional job with lyrical beauty-- no surprise given his backlist of fantastic poetry. If you enjoy novels with the lyricism and textual complexity of Ocean Vuong, Garth Greenwell, or Madeline Miller, please consider opening up a copy of Open, Heaven.

Thank you to Sean Hewitt, NetGalley, and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the eARC.

Seán Hewitt’s Open, Heaven is a luminous debut novel that captures the rawness of teenage loneliness and desire. Hewitt, already celebrated for his memoir All Down Darkness Wide, brings a poet’s precision to his fiction, crafting a narrative steeped in emotional depth and atmospheric beauty.

Set in a vividly rendered North English village, the story follows a lonely teenage boy navigating the complexities of unrequited love for a seemingly ordinary straight peer. Hewitt’s writing transforms this simple premise into a profound exploration of adolescent love, longing, and the ache for queer belonging. His ability to evoke the intensity of youthful first love, with its purity and heartbreak, is remarkable. Readers will feel the visceral weight of a moment when emotions were all-consuming and life’s possibilities seemed infinite yet fleeting.

Hewitt’s prose is tender and immersive, making everyday events resonate with universal significance. Fans of works like In Memoriam and At Swim, Two Boys will find a kindred spirit in this novel. At times, Open, Heaven feels like an extension of Hewitt’s memoir, adding authenticity and a deeply personal touch to its narrative.

This is a poignant meditation on love, loss, and the irretrievability of youth. An extraordinary debut that promises to resonate deeply with readers. Highly recommended.

seán hewitt is a mastermind when it comes to writing and getting under your skin (in the best way) with this debut. it's full of lyrical writing and the yearning you find in a queer coming of age story that rips at your heartstrings. this one's definitely a book to keep an eye out for.

Overall, a really melancholic novel that does an excellent job capturing the experience of first unrequited love. James' obsession with Luke would seem unrealistic if I didn't remember how stupid teenage love made me. Add to this the isolating experience of being the only openly gay person in your remote village in the early aughts, and you can really understand James' anxieties. Hewitt delivers a complete telling of the boys' relationship in a relatively short novel, featuring a little bit of framing 20 years on. I'm not sure how much the framing added to the story, beyond making it sadder to me.

The writing is lovely, if a bit flowery for me. It also felt a little ill-fitted for a teenage boy in 2002. I kept forgetting this wasn't taking place much earlier.

Wow. What an intense, deep, important, beautiful story crafted in such an eloquent way. Even when emotions were running high, I enjoyed every moment if this story. The writing especially pulled me in and held my hand as I journeyed through this story.