The Heart's Invisible Furies (eAudio)

I first read The Heart's Invisible Furies back in 2017 and since then, I have recommended it to as many people as humanly possible. Its main character, Cyril Avery (although 'he's not REAL Avery') is one of those special characters who have stayed with me throughout the years. This connection with him, the topics addressed, and Boyne's wonderful writing make this book one of my top five books of all time. How's that for an endorsement?!

I read and reviewed this book four years ago, but I recently listened to the digital audiobook and fell in love with this story all over again. For this review I'll pull in bits and pieces from my original review and include a review of the audiobook narrator, Stephen Hogan. Hogan is a new-to-me narrator and he does a stellar job bringing this book to life with his spot-on accents, intonation and nuances that help to distinguish the many characters. My only wee beef with this audiobook (and it is but a wee moo) is that the changeover between chapters was too abrupt.

The Heart's Invisible Furies spans seven decades of Cyril's life and his journey towards self-discovery and acceptance. It is also a story about the different relationships we have in our lives - the messy, loving, complicated, fractured, soul-crushing connections and those precious bonds that heal. It has hilarious, giggle-out-loud, dry humour which is interspersed within the story that features a raw, honest look at a man struggling to find out who he is within the confines of his conservative Irish culture and the opinionated and often bigoted views of the Catholic church. I appreciated that Boyne doesn't shy away from big issues - the Catholic Church's hold over Ireland and its hypocrisy, IRA violence, prejudice and injustice against the gay population and the terror and misinformation about the AIDS epidemic.

This book had me laughing, angry, shocked and in a good ol' ugly cry because Cyril is a complicated character whose stumbles and successes always rang true. Readers will be engrossed in Cyril's struggle to find himself with Boyne's emotional, funny, and engaging writing pulling them along the way. If you haven't yet read it, please make 2021 the year you meet Cyril Avery.

My Rating: 5 stars

Author: John Boyne

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, LGBTQ

Type and Source: eAudiobook from public library

Narrator: Stephen Hogan

Run Time: 21 hours, 19 minutes

Publisher: Bond Street Books

First Published in Print: January 1, 2017

Opening Line: Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the alter of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.

Book Description from GoodReads: 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.