Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple (via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun) Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime attempting to know himself and to discover where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, a place of belonging.
In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel about the search for a sense of self in a changing world and the ultimate, redemptive power of the human spirit.
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781784161002
Number of pages: 736
Weight: 495 g
Dimensions: 196 x 127 x 30 mm
Tender, dark, hilarious, heartbreaking—I loved it - Vogue
It’s been a long time since I read anything so compelling and satisfying. At times, incredibly funny, at others, heartrending
the most beautifully written and crafted novel ... heartbreaking - Santa Montefiore
By turns savvy, witty and achingly sad . . . This is a novelist at the top of his game. - The Mail on Sunday
I ran through the whole range of human emotions while reading this brilliant novel. It's a masterpiece. - Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
Screamingly funny one minute and heartbreaking the next. - Daily Express
A special read - BBC Radio 4 Front Row
Boyne creates lightness out of doom, humour out of desperately sad situations, creating a compelling page-turner… a terrific read. - The Press Association
An epic novel…. Worthy of the great master of the Irish comic novel, Flann O’Brien. The Heart’s Invisible Furies proves that John is not just one of Ireland’s best living novelists but also one of the best novelists of Ireland. - Sunday Express
Written with verve, humour and heart…at its core, The Heart’s Invisible Furies aspires to be not just the tale of Cyril Avery, a man buffeted by coincidence and circumstance, but the story of Ireland itself - Irish Times
Heart-breaking and hilarious in equal measure, Cyril Avery (although not a real Avery!) is a narrator whose voice and story will stay with you for a long time. From the opening pages we are ushered into a world which... More
My first and only previous encounter with John Boyne was the excellent young adult story "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". So when the opportunity arose and I was gifted early review status on "The... More
I didn't realise John Boyne wrote for adults, and I read a taster of this title and immediately ordered the full proof copy. It is an utterly compelling read, and it was easy to become deeply invested in the... More
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