Book review: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

In 1945 in the closing days of the war, a pregnant sixteen-year-old girl, Catherine Goggin, is cruelly denounced from the pulpit by her local priest and literally thrown out of her small Irish village. Fortunately Catherine is a force to be reckoned with and despite boarding the bus to Dublin with hardly any money and nowhere to go, getting the heck out of Goleen and away from its small minded inhabitants isn’t all bad. With little other choice to be had, her baby boy, Cyril, is adopted at birth by the wealthy Avery family, and it is he who tells the story.

From Dublin to Amsterdam to New York and back to Dublin, we follow Cyril Avery’s life at seven-year intervals as it unfolds, through childhood, his unrequited love for his friend Julian, adulthood and the near-impossibility of living as a gay man in Ireland, love, relationships, loss and change, all set against the sweeping social and political backdrop of postwar Ireland and the wider world.

It’s hilarious, tender, bawdy and heartbreaking, often all at the same time. Laugh out loud moments abound (the “one of them” conversation with a former colleague and then conversation with Laura’s parents in the hospital were particular highlights, but there are many more). Cyril’s childhood is handled with a light and humorous touch, which does not obscure the awfulness of being constantly reminded by his eccentric and remote adoptive parents that he’s not their real son and therefore doesn’t count; notwithstanding his own observation that his childhood was “reasonably happy”.  Tragedy is never far away though and right from the start John Boyne pulls no punches in depicting the discrimination, hatred and outright violence which Cyril and others all too often experience.

Throughout, his real mother Catherine - an amazing woman in so many ways - intersects occasionally with his life, their true relationship known to us the readers but not to them. I was hoping so hard for a moment when they would learn the truth, because Cyril needed Catherine in his life so badly (well, who wouldn’t?). 

Cyril, an everyman in some respects, does some undoubtedly awful things as he slowly flounders towards being able to live his life honestly, but retains his fundamental decency and goodness. 

I adored this epic story which had me in laughter and tears on numerous occasions. Read it! 

The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith: Book review

Scandinavian crime, à la Alexander McCall Smith, is - as you might expect - an altogether much nicer, gentler affair than the Scandi noir of recent times. 

Ulf Varg - both his names mean “wolf” - possibly the kindest man in the Swedish police force, works in the eponymous Department of Sensitive Crimes, where anything a bit odd seems to end up. Ulf loves Nordic art and his dog, Martin, who he has taught to lip read . He’s also rather too fond of his colleague Anna, though that is unfortunately fraught with complication...

There are of course no gruesome murders to be investigated; the most violent thing that happens here is a market trader being stabbed in the back of the knee. There’s also the mysterious disappearance of a young woman’s imaginary boyfriend, and some mysterious, even wolfish, goings-on at a spa. Plenty for the thoughtful, reflective Ulf and his colleagues - Anna, the conscientious Carl, fishing-obsessed clerical assistant Erik and annoyingly loquacious Blomquist - to be getting on with. As is usual for this author, none of the mysteries or solutions are especially mind-blowing, but that’s not really the point. 

Fans of Alexander McCall Smith (I would count myself as one, although I haven’t read everything he’s written... there’s a lot of it) will delight in the gently meandering style and philosophical musings. The Department of Sensitive Crimes is the first in a series featuring Ulf Varg - I look forward to future instalments.