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 Heart’s Invisible Furies is a remarkably poignant read. Cyril and other characters kept me not only enthralled but they were wonderful company. I will miss many of them.
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