The Heart's Invisible Furies

July 31, 2017
Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) begins his enchanting, sprawling latest novel in 1945 as 16-year-old Catherine Goggin is cast from her home in Goleen, Ireland. Unmarried, pregnant, and shamed by a priest in front of the entire congregation, she makes her way to Dublin, where, after finding a job at the Parliament of the Irish Republic, she rents a dingy apartment. At her tenement, Catherine witnesses an act of violence against her flatmates, the stress of which forces her into labor in the hall of her building. Thus begins the life of Cyril Avery, the boy whose life fills the remaining pages. Splitting the novel into decade-long sections, Boyne explores Cyril’s life in luscious detail. Cyril is raised by quirky and inattentive adoptive parents—a banker and a successful writer—in Dublin. After school he visits Amsterdam, then later navigates 1980s New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic. With evocative descriptions of each city and fateful plot turns that twist the narrative in surprising ways, Boyne adroitly captures Cyril’s shifting identity as he grapples with nationality, class, and sexuality. 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.

Starred review from June 15, 2017
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.It's 1945, and a philandering Catholic priest is throwing 16-year-old Catherine Goggin out of church and the village for being unwed and pregnant as her family looks on silently. With quick strokes and bitter humor, Boyne's (A History of Loneliness, 2015, etc.) opening scene encapsulates the Irish church's hypocrisy and utter control of a meek flock. Having taken on the church's sexual abuse of children in his previous novel, Boyne continues his crusading ways with the quiet keening of this painful, affecting novel. Catherine will travel to Dublin and give birth after saving the life of a gay youth whose partner is beaten to death by his own father. Her son, Cyril, the book's first-person narrator, is adopted in infancy by a wealthy Dublin couple. He is smitten at 7 with a boy his age who visits the house, and even more so at 14, when they are roommates in school, but he mutes his passion for the handsome, charismatic Julian as they become close friends. As Boyne captures Cyril every seven years, his 20s feature a double life, secret promiscuity and public straightness. Then, he briefly marries (1973), flees Ireland, finds love in Amsterdam (1980), and works with AIDs patients in New York (1987). There, he suffers two wrenching losses--which also, happily, mark the end of Cyril's tendency to forget he's a witty, ironic conversationalist and veer close to maudlin self-pity. His 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.

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June 15, 2017

In 2015, a ghost tells 70-year-old Cyril Avery he will soon die. Assured that he will rejoin lost loved ones, Cyril experiences a previously elusive peace. Cyril was born in Dublin in 1945 to an unwed teenager. His adoptive parents are eccentric and distant, though they shelter him from intolerance and cruelty as he comes to terms with his sexuality in a repressive Ireland. Cyril's life story is extraordinary, tragic, and triumphant and somehow revolves around his recurring acquaintance with the brave and resilient Mrs. Goggin. She's a sort of guardian angel in his formative years, but in middle age Cyril finds himself consoling his aging, vulnerable protector as she faces tragedy in her own remarkable life. Their compassion for each other ultimately leads them on a mutual quest for closure and renewal. VERDICT Boyne dedicates his wise, beautiful 15th novel to John Irving. This tribute fits a story calling to mind the humane sagas of T.S. Garp, Owen Meaney, and the humble tale of Piggy Sneed. 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. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]--John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

The author of the multi-award-winning and mega-best-selling children's book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and of adult fiction like 2015's blade-sharp A History of Loneliness, Boyne here tells the affecting story of Cyril Avery, born out of wedlock to an Irish teenager after World War II and adopted by a rich but cockeyed Dublin couple. Cyril swirls and eddies through life, trying to find out who he really is. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.