The Heart's Invisible Furies
THIS IS AN UNCORRECTED EBOOK FILE. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book. Dear Reader, Like-minded zeal is one of the great force multipliers in our business. A reader you trust looks you dead in the eye and tries to explain just how good a book is, how piercing and transformative and, because you trust him, you give yourself over to his recommendation. This is just what happened when Bill Scott-Kerr, my brilliant colleague, publisher of the formidable UK house, Transworld, sat in my office and, with a seriousness totally uncharacteristic of him, said that he only wanted to talk about one book. That book is the one you hold in your hands—John Boyne’s transporting, bravura novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies. Now, consider this letter the epistolary version of me looking you dead in the eye. It’s my turn to persuade you to give yourself over to this remarkable book. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is a big, dramatic, eccentric telling of the life and times of Dubliner Cyril Avery. It’s no accident the book is dedicated to John Irving. The resonances are wonderfully clear. Boyne’s novel is funny and tragic and totally immersive and so cleverly constructed that you experience not only Cyril’s unconventional and fascinating upbringing and his halting struggle to become who he’s meant to be, as well as the marvelous characters who cross his path, but also the gradual transformation of his homeland. Ireland’s evolution from a land dominated by the institution of the Church, both its cultural influence and its considerable hypocrisy, to one leading the way on tolerance and civil rights stands as one of the book’s most brilliant themes.
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