The Heart's Invisible Furies: John Boyne

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Almost every human being yearns to love and be loved. Often this is given first by our family, and when it isn’t, the soul searches for affection in other places. This is the hardest road. When he is seven years old he meets Julian Woodbead, the son of Charles' lawyer and childhood friend. Even at seven, Julian is infinitely more glamorous and worldly than anyone Cyril can imagine, and Cyril is utterly transfixed by him. This chance encounter begins a lifelong relationship which will bring Cyril to the greatest heights and the lowest lows, force him to understand who he is and what he wants and feels he deserves from life, and come to terms with his homeland and its domination by religion, as well as his unique upbringing.

Irving's works are characterized by two key themes: the absent parent who looms large in his/her offspring's life, and the role of predetermination merged with coincidence. Both these themes are in ample display here (Jill S). This book. THIS BOOK. I cannot remember the last time I became so thoroughly immersed in a story, fell so deeply in love with the characters, and had my heart so fully ripped out. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a masterpiece. Most people will know Boyne from his hard-hitting children's book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but this book is something else entirely. Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past. With strange parental guidance and no emotional support to speak of, a sexually frustrated young Cyril resorts to the confessional, and (OMG) that does not go too well either. The writing is so effective here, I could almost feel the.....um fallout. Cyril is adopted to another couple who are very strange. I guess they loved Cyril in their own way and was never hurt but all of his life he seemed to miss out on something. A little clueless to things in the world.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. I got to travel to various continents. There were three locales, all fleshed out, and the life in each one was rich. Very strange, but this book starts exactly like one of my very favorite books this year, Lilli de Jong. Both books start with a pregnant, unwed woman being run out of town by her religious family and community. What are the chances that I would read two books that start that way? Now that’s a coincidence I can live with. Boyne is attempting something rather epic here, letting one man's story stand in for the history of homosexuality over the last five decades and in several locations. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. He also strives to bring the characters full circle; Cyril unknowingly keeps running across his birth mother, and the figure of Julian, his first crush, makes several reappearances. An interesting effort, if not always successful (Deborah M). Although I enjoyed the read, many themes were repetitive and too long. I think the novel would have been improved with tighter editing (Viqui G). Apparently this is some sort of family saga and I'm always down for a little bit of drama and all the feels.

Well, boo-hoo you, I thought, considering the terrible trials and tribulations that were happening to people all around him, gay and straight. If only some of his birth or adoptive mothers' mettle had rubbed off on him!

The Heart’s Invisible Furies

It's not only a FAVORITE-FAVORITE....It makes my top 10 BEST BOOKS in at least the last 5 or 6 years!!!! PHENOMENAL- long - lush perfectly escapist read!!!! The Hearts Invisible Furies follows the life of Cyril Avery. At a young age Cyril struggled to grasp an identity, feeling lost and unsure. Over his life he tries to come to terms with who he is and the reality of his home country. I was born in Dublin, Ireland, and studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. In 2015, I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by UEA.

As Cyril grows older, he begins to realise that he's not like other boys, he has no interest in girls, and indeed when he meets Julian Woodbead at the age of 7, he's completely obsessed with him and this will continue for many years. He begins to see Julian as the love of his life, however it's a love that's not returned and something he has to keep secret - this was a time when it was a criminal offence to be homosexual, and at the very least would land you a severe beating.

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas brought you international acclaim. Did that success change you as a writer? A sweeping saga of one gay man's life over 70 years of Irish history, by the author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas I love writing as much as I ever did. I always wake up feeling excited. We all know that only 10% of writers make a living out of it. So yes, the money does make a difference. In 2012, I was awarded the Hennessy Literary ‘Hall of Fame’ Award for my body of work. I’ve also won 4 Irish Book Awards, and many international literary awards, including the Que Leer Award for Novel of the Year in Spain and the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize in Germany. In 2015, I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia. This book is brimming with life in all its messy permutations. Sadness and joy, sorrow and pain, friendship and love and eventually peace and forgiveness. This is a big sprawl of a novel, a huge undertaking but we meet many along the way, all adding additional insight into the story. Life's coincidences also abound and some of the happenings are surprising. This book got into my heart and under my skin. The dialogue is outstanding, often humorous, seemingly like a comedy of errors and my favorite part of this book. Not sure yet if this will be my favorite book of the year but it is definitely my favorite of the month.

There are other clear influences at work here too. The book is dedicated to John Irving, the American author who also specialises in the richly told stories of entire and varied lives [in one scene, Cyril is reading a Dutch translation of Irving's most famous work, The World According to Garp].

Boyne’s enraged vision is his great strength in The Heart’s Invisible Furies. The appalling comedy of Cyril’s childhood and youth, the vigour, the mess, the stir and life and horror of it all form the heart of a substantial achievement. The Irish writer’s 10th novel for adults examines one man’s life over the course of 70 years to reveal the personal and societal toll of Ireland’s repression of homosexuality.