The Heart's Invisible Furies Paperback – 6 Mar. 2018

I have had this book on my Kindle for a while and decided to select it at random to read one day. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and went into the book with an open mind. I didn’t realise until after I finished the book that John Boyne wrote ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ but I loved that book, so it was not really any surprise to me that I loved ‘The Heart's Invisible Furies’ too.The story’s main character is Cyril Avery and the book opens with a pregnant teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community. We follow her struggle and learn that her baby, Cyril, is adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun.The book portrays Cyril’s whole life. We see that he is adrift in the world and struggles to find his identity and a home. We are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. We meet a whole cast of characters and see them drift in and out of Cyril’s life.The narrative shifts forward seven years every 70 pages or so, covering the 70 years in Cyril’s life, it focuses on key events and smaller moments but with far more going unsaid than is written on the page. The time we spend in each era of Cyril’s life varies and we meet a few of the same characters a couple of times, usually through a (slightly hard to believe) coincidence. The writing flows well and the characters and their relationships are well presented and engaging.I loved this book. I love huge books spanning over time but this is a funny, poignant, moving and at times heartbreaking story and I was hooked from the beginning. There are moments of humour and also absolute devastation - this book is a rollercoaster for sure.I have nothing but good things to say about ‘The Heart's Invisible Furies’ and I haven’t enjoyed a book this much since I read ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara 3 years ago. From its laugh-out-loud moments to thought-provoking and devastating scenes and times that gave me pause to be thankful for what I have in life, ‘The Heart's Invisible Furies’ made for very rewarding reading and I would highly recommend it.

This book is an absolute must read. It has everything. The best book I've read by far. So beautiful, funny and devastating all at the same time. Incredibly written. The dialogue between some of the characters is just brilliant. Loved it. Told everyone I knew to read it. Those that did absolutely loved it too.

At the start of this book I thought it was about the life of a young girl living in ruralIreland who gets pregnant and is cruelly evicted from her community by a hypocritical philandering priest, together with her whole community.A story I have read before.But then it developed into the life of a homosexual man living in London during the 1950s ( spoiler alert - guess who his mum was).Again, not an unusual story.But the details were interesting and well written. Lots of twists and turns where you thought you knew what was about to happen, but it didn’t.The ending painfully happy ever after - even for those that had died. I could see it on TV or a film - and perhaps that is the intention.Surely a writer of this quality could have finished the story either more realistically, nuanced or interestingly.

The story begins with Catherine Goggin, who finding herself pregnant at sixteen years old and publicly humiliated by the priest in her home town, leaves for Dublin. These initial scenes depicting Catherine's life are upsetting, clearly capturing the prejudice of the time and placing the reader firmly in the social and political context of the novel. Boyne engages his reader immediately with characters that we feel an emotional connection to quickly. Catherine is a brave and bold young girl who has a plan and a determination for a better life for herself and her child. She shows wit, intelligence and confidence as she seeks out a fresh start in Dublin despite her situation and the reader is rooting from her from the start. As with all great stories, the people she meets through her random interactions on the bus and on arrival in the city go on to inform and shape the rest of the story.The opening scenes are powerful and wonderfully evoked. Although there are many books about this time period in Ireland, about young girls shunned by the church and their families, about same sex relationships and prejudice, Boyne makes this story as compelling and unputdownable as anything else. His writing is vivid, full of drama, tension and shock. There is something about Boyne's writing that is deeply affecting and within the opening chapters, he has created characters and issues that will touch the reader and hook them deep into the pages of this thoughtful novel.After Catherine's initial narrative, the story then continues with Cyril Avery, adopted as a baby thanks to the intervention of a little Redemptorist nun, and his search for identity, a sense of belonging and his emotional journey as he comes to terms with his place in the world. Cyril is an incredibly well crafted character. He is misguided, naive, vulnerable, confused, flawed and yet likeable- perhaps actually loveable. In a way, this novel echoes something very classic in it's shape and form; it is a coming of age novel, a story full of social commentary, political issues, a personal journey affected by key moments in history, and a novel that is ultimately about love, friendship and identity. The most enjoyable thing about this novel is Boyne's protagonist and his observations, insights, his candid comments, his need to hide, suppress and struggle against his feelings and his interaction with the other colourful cast of characters that he finds himself sharing parts of his life with.This book is so readable, so fluent in it's narrative, so immersive and so full of clever dialogue that it does become unputdownable and it is impossible to walk away from Cyril and his adventure. There is not enough space to refer to the range of emotions that the reader will experience throughout the moments, events and scenes that occur in this story. There are some passages that are upsetting, or challenging, and yet there is much humour and entertainment and many passages that will make the reader laugh or smile. Boyne's writing is so eloquent, so captivating and so polished that this really is an exceptional novel.Cyril is a marvellous character, matched only perhaps by the glamorous Julian Woodbead. All the key characters in the novel are completely three dimensional and Cyril's interaction with them brings the reader passages of heart break, dilemma, complications, challenge, frustration and sadness. There are also characters who bring us light relief, entertainment and plenty of heartwarming moments. The balance between the ups and downs is well judged and Boyne's turn of phrase and skilful writing ensures that the reader is never too overwhelmed despite the level of emotion and the complexity of the issues explored. This is as uplifting as it is sad, as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking.The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel that address cruelty, the position of women, the power of the Church, the prejudice towards gay relationships, love and identity through a fascinating protagonist who drives this absorbing tale over 700 pages, never once disappointing the reader or losing their empathy or engagement. There are some beautifully written passages and there are many examples of exquisite writing including lots of pertinent repetition, imagery and thematic motifs. This is a story of a man who struggles to belong, to find his place in the world and whose journey we share as he tries to seek out and come to terms with his country and himself.