Heart's Invisible Furies (Boyne) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
A picaresque, lolloping odyssey for the individual characters and for the nation that confines them.… The book blazes with anger as it commemorates lives wrecked by social contempt and self‑loathing.… [A] substantial achievement.
Guardian (UK)
 

This is nothing less than the story of Ireland over the past 70 years, expressed in the life of one man… highly entertaining and often very funny…Big and clever.
Times Sunday Review (UK)


An epic full of verve, humour and heart… sure to be read by the bucketload.… [D]eeply cinematic [and] extremely funny.
Irish Times (UK)
 

By turns savvy, witty, and achingly sad.… This is a novelist at the top of his game.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
 

An epic novel.… 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.
Express (UK)


Boyne creates lightness out of doom, humour out of desperately sad situations.… [A] terrific read.
Press Association (UK)


The book becomes both an examination of Cyril’s life and a catalogue of Western society’s evolution from post-war to present day, with all its failings, triumphs, complexities, and certainties. The story falters slightly near the end, but the life of Cyril Avery is one to be relished. (Aug.)
Publishers Weekly


Readers will fall in love with Boyne's characters, especially Mrs. Goggin and Cyril's adoptive mother, Maude Avery, in this heartbreaking and hilarious story.  —John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Boyne, who has a wonderful gift for characterization, does a splendid job of weaving these various lives together in ways that are richly dramatic, sometimes surprising, and always compelling… Often quite funny, the story nevertheless has its sadness, sometimes approaching tragedy. Utterly captivating and not to be missed.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [Cyril's] later years in Ireland seem to bring the promise of reconciliation on several fronts, but there is still penance and pain until the book's last word. A dark novel marred by occasional melodrama but lightened by often hilarious dialogue.
Kirkus Reviews