Books I've read: The Heart's Invisible Furies

A friend at work gave me this to read because she thought I'd enjoy it.  She was right...

It's kind of an epic story in that it spans around 70 years in life of Cyril from his birth out of wedlock in 1940s Ireland to the present day.  In telling the story of this one man, we get to see the way attitudes and ideas have changed over the years. And the ways they have not.

Cyril realises quite young that he's gay, even if he isn't able to communicate what it is he feels when the glamourous young Julian shows up at his house and wants to compare willies.  Cyril's attraction to Julian forms the backbone of his identity, even while Julian seems oblivious to his desires.

With Julian unable (or unwilling) to return his affections, Cyril is forced to seek satisfaction in the only places available to him in the repressed Ireland of the 1950s and 1960s.  It's only after escaping Ireland for Amsterdam that Cyril is finally able to accept himself and the love of another man.

In 1980s New York, that acceptance is turning to fear with the AIDS epidemic ravaging the gay community, yet it isn't AIDS that shatters Cyril's life but a random act of violence.  Broken, he returns to Ireland to try and reconnect with his past and find a way forward.  And in doing so, he may just find the family he's never had before...

I really enjoyed this book.  Cyril was a fascinating character because he is terribly flawed, yet still very relatable.  It was also fascinating to follow the ways attitudes toward homosexuality changed over the period of time, particularly in Ireland with its deep rooted Catholicism.

The author's note at the end was also a fascinating read, so if you decide to read this book, don't skip that!

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb: 

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.