For a book to get five-stars, I want to laugh and cry. I want to whoop with joy when a character triumphs but equally, I want to have my heart broken (just a little). Basically, I want a million feelings and Cyril Avery, the star of John Boyne’s big, ramshackle novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, delivers it all.

There’s great emphasis from the outset that Cyril Avery is not a real Avery – he’s adopted by the peculiar but not inherently unkind, Charles and Maude Avery.

I was not a real Avery and would not be looked after financially in adulthood in the manner that a real Avery would have been. ‘Think of this more as a tenancy, Cyril,’ he told me – they had named me Cyril for a spaniel they’d once owned and loved – ‘an eighteen-year tenancy. But during that time there’s no reason why we shouldn’t all get along, is there?’

Charles is a banker, with a history of tax evasion. Maude is an author whose books received positive reviews but miniscule sales, “…something that pleased her enormously, for she considered popularity in the bookshops to be vulgar.’ Cyril, a quiet and accommodating child, seems accepting of his role in his odd family. He’s left to his own devices, receiving little attention or love from Charles and Maude. While the situation could be construed as cruel, Boyne instead makes the relationship between the three one of the novel’s comic highlights, bolstered by Cyril’s wry observations and reminisces –

I always called them Charles and Maude, never ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’. This was on Charles’s insistence as I wasn’t a real Avery. It didn’t bother me particularly but I know it made other people uncomfortable and once, in school, when I referred to them thus, a priest punched me around the ears and told me off for being modern.

When Cyril meets Julian Woodbead at age seven, his life changes. Julian is daring and charismatic, and from the outset, Cyril is in awe of his new friend. And so their story unfolds.

‘What’s sex?’ I asked.
‘You really don’t know?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said and he took great delight in describing in detail actions that to me seemed not just unpleasant and unsanitary but possibly criminal.

There’s an Irvingesque quality to this big, blustery novel – a saga; a story of a journey (both literal and existential); close examination of themes of identity and belonging; some mad and preposterous moments; and fanciful plot twists. Like Irving, Boyne fuels the story by exposing hypocrisy and hate – in this case, generated by the Catholic Church – alongside exceptionally memorable characters that we can’t help but care deeply for.

Cyril, looking back on Maude’s novels, observes that ‘…she understood completely the condition of loneliness and how it undermines us all, forcing us to make choices that we know are completely wrong for us.’ It’s a sentiment that underpins much of the action in this book and Boyne gently explores themes of loneliness, isolation and authenticity against the brutal backdrop of dogmatic religious beliefs.

Mention must be made of the superb sense of place and time (the book spans 1940-2000s), particularly the brief but revealing descriptions of Dublin. On her arrival from rural Ireland, Cyril’s biological mother notes that Dublin was –

…a place she had heard of all her life that was supposedly full of whores and atheists but that seemed much like home, only with more cars, bigger buildings and better clothes.

Decades later, Cyril observes –

The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it.

I’ve made this book sound grim but it’s not. Boyne tackles serious issues and some tragic and shocking events with carefully (and perfectly) pitched humour. There’s warmth and hope and so much goodness in this story and I loved every moment.

I received my copy of The Heart’s Invisible Furies from the publisher, Random House UK, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

5/5 A book that will squeeze your heart.

I have struggled with this book. It deals with important and controversial issues mainly as seen through the eyes of Cyril Avery. At first he had my sympathy but in the end I was just irritated him and the other characters. Some of the situations Cyril found himself involved in bordered on farcical. It seemed to go on for ever.

5★
“‘What’s sex?’ I asked.
‘You really don’t know?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said, and he took great delight in describing in detail actions that to me seemed not just unpleasant and unsanitary but possibly criminal.”

The description was boy-girl sex, but when Cyril finally discovered sex for himself, he found he was right about the last point.

“It was 1959, after all. I knew almost nothing of homosexuality, except for the fact that to act on such urges was a criminal act in Ireland that could result in a jail sentence, unless of course you were a priest, in which case it was a perk of the job.”

Cyril tells us his story from the vantage point of today, at the end of his life, but he takes us back and forth in such a way that he gives us information ahead of time but leaves us hanging to find out when he discovered certain facts himself.

The book opens with the irrepressible Catherine, 17 and pregnant, being flung out of the village church by the pastor. Her family wants her to disappear and never come back. (The fact that the priest himself has illegitimate children seems to be beside the point.)

She goes to Dublin, shares a flat with a couple of fellows, there’s a murder, her baby is born and adopted out secretly through a nun.

This is a family saga with a difference, and the book that kept coming to my mind was Hanya Yanagihara’s terrific story A Little Life, because I became totally absorbed in the story and the characters. Each was very much their own person, and the way they cross paths occasionally is very natural and ongoing and suspenseful as we wait for coincidences to be noticed.

These people form Cyril’s extended family, much the way Jude and his friends became a family.

We know Catherine is Cyril’s mother, and Cyril tells us early on about his mother (from the vantage point of “today”), but we have no idea when or how he found out. You will find yourself wanting to shake the author and say “OUT WITH IT” when the opportunity presents itself now and then.

But Cyril has no particular desire to find his real parents. He’s been adopted by a peculiar wealthy couple, Charles and Maude Avery who name him Cyril “but you’re not a real Avery” which is repeated to him at every possible moment. He is to call them by their first names, never Mother or Father, and he always, always, always refers to them as my adoptive parents.

Charles is a womaniser, Maude is an author who is happy to publish but wishes to remain anonyomous. To be famous would be unspeakably vulgar. She is a woman for whom the term ‘chain-smoker’ was invented.

“She continued to stare at him before turning her face towards the ceiling and blowing a great cloud of white smoke in the air, as if she was preparing to announce the election of a new Pope.”

They send him away to a school where he reacquaints himself with a boy who fascinated him when they first met at seven but whom he never saw again - Julian. Julian was sex-obsessed and worldly even then, while Cyril - well, you saw earlier how much he knew.

We follow Julian through the course of Cyril’s life, but between childhood and later adulthood, Cyril lives in the shadows, a slave to his ’criminal’ lust for sex with men. He cruises the cinemas, the harbour, the bars, and anywhere that a nod to another fellow at the right time is enough of a signal for them to meet for a quickie in the bushes or an alley.

There are bashings and deaths and a constant undercurrent of fear. Boyne describes this thoughtfully and realistically without lingering over any salacious details. It is real and frightening. Cyril suffers dreadful pain and loss several times. He lives in Amsterdam for some time, which is freer-thinking than Dublin, but nowhere is entirely safe.

There are good and loyal friends, a partner, women, jobs, and then the AIDS crisis when he is living in New York. He volunteers to work with the dying and crosses paths yet again with people from his past. He describes a patient.

“His cheeks were sunken, as were his eyes, and a dark oval of purple-red sent a hideous bruise along his chin and down his neckline. A line came into my mind, something that Hannah Arendt had once said about the poet Auden: that life had manifested the heart’s invisible furies on his face. He looked a hundred years old.”

Cyril is beginning to feel his own mortality. He hints all the way through about what has happened in the past but the story moves back and forth in time, so he leaves us guessing about the gaps until he actually returns to those scenes when we can catch up.

I loved this until about three-quarters of the way through when something about the style seemed to change. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I think there was ‘extra’ conversation outside the story and a fair bit of moralising about the evils of homophobia and politics and society and the Big Picture.

I’m a fan of show, don’t tell, and I really thought Boyne had painted such a clear picture of the circumstances of Cyril’s life that I resented the change of tone. But in Boyne’s defence, and to excuse his passion for making absolutely certain we understand, I will quote what he said in the epilogue.

“For although Cyril in The Heart’s Invisible Furies is born a quarter-century before me, he spends the formative part of his life as anxious about his sexuality as I was, and many of his experiences, I’m embarrassed to admit, echo my own during my youth.

. . . this was my life until my late twenties. I come from a generation that felt – that still feels – a little awkward about being gay, a little embarrassed about it, even though we know there’s no reason to.”

Great story to get lost in, and I’m probably in the minority about my small gripe at the end. My interest definitely waned for a bit, but I did get drawn back in later. It was quite some life, after all, and it doesn’t affect my rating. This is bound to be on many awards lists.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

What a wonderful read which all aspects of life Ireland from the1940 s to the present day and how it affects the main character Cyril Avery. It's difficult to talk about the story without giving away the twist and turns of the plot but just take my word for it that it's an exhilarating ride that has happy and sad moments - one of best books I have read recently.

Another masterpiece by a well loved author. From years of sadness on one page to the next page of tears of laughter.

Such a wonderful read! I so enjoyed this book, which catapults the reader into the narrow, bigoted world of 1940s Ireland with a life-shattering drama. It kick-starts the unusual saga (quite literally) and leads us through the enfolding decades to the present day with horror, humour and wit. I was totally hooked from the beginning and loved the twists and turns of the plot, however coincidental or implausible, which cleverly delayed full disclosure to the end. I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue and assertions of the narrator and was moved to tears at other points in the novel. A sparkling, well-written book, which I might even return to for a further read - praise indeed!

This is by far one of the most difficult reviews I ever had to write.
If you read the synopsis there is not much given about the struggle Cyril is going trough but it is really difficult to review this book without giving small away small things that might spoil parts of the story that would be nice to discover yourself. If this book caught your interest by just reading the synopsis just get a copy and read it. John Boyne is a great writer and this story will be worth it. If you want to know more and maybe get a tiny bit spoiled you can read the rest of this review.

This book is raw and emotional. The struggle Cyril is experiencing, finding his way in life, is real and it is clear that the author knows what he is talking about. Though the story covers Cyril his whole life (and a few extra years) and the speed is pretty high there is enough space to explain the laws and rules of the country and society. The influence this has on the decisions Cyril makes in his life and how much it hurts not being able to be yourself. What made it even more clear was the approach that live is happening and you have to make of it what you can within the boundaries. As we follow Cyril growing up having to deal with adolescence, finding a job, friends getting married and so on the struggle becomes even more clear.

Cyril is an easy character to love. Meeting him as a young boy and experiencing his journey growing up the loneliness of his childhood already makes you want to take him away and engulf him with love. He does make some decisions in his life I could not agree with as a reader but the anger at him only made me invested in him more. As you meet most other characters trough his eyes his emotions are mirrored in the readers liking or disliking a character. His adoptive parents are by far the most interesting characters and the relationship between Cyril and them and how they keep influencing the rest of his life would be worth a whole investigation for some psychiatrist.

The one thing that did bother me in the book was the coincidence of how Cyril and Catherine stayed connected. Not only in the city but even in other parts of the world.

Enjoyed this family saga of a girl forced to leave her home town in rural Ireland after becoming pregnant. It follows the life she makes for herself in Dublin, and how her path crosses with people from her past and her future. Her son meanwhile grows up knowing he is adopted, but not how close to his origins. Cleverly told with sympathetic characters. An critical indictment of Irish values and institutions

What an incredible book- the best I've read in a long time!
I cried, laughed out loud, was shocked and appalled and completely broke my heart all throughout this tremendous story of the life of Cyril Avery. The dialogue, so humorous at times, is wonderful.
So many emotions evoked - not least the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church along with the prejudice and injustice at gay people and the subject of AIDS - not only from the church but generally in society.
A well recommended read for 2018 - you won't regret it!

The restrictions placed by the Catholic Church upon rural communities in Ireland, is the shocking starting point for this exploration of life and love.

One individual is followed as he comes to terms with being adopted, lives as a gay man in a rigidly heterosexual community, and deals with a series of misunderstandings as a result. The scope of the novel moves to Amsterdam, New York and Eastern Europe, returning to Ireland for a rewarding conclusion.

At times laugh out loud, with a sensitive and accurate use of dialogue, this is a beautifully written exploration of one man's journey. Rewarding, enjoyable and yet sometimes very poignant. A rewarding read.

Where to start? Boyne is a remarkable author who draws the reader into his writing like a moth to a flame. The stigma if illegitimacy in Ireland and the problems that homosexuality can bring are explored over over the space of some 70 years. Cyril is the illegitimate son of Catherine and we follow his life through adoption to grave.
This is a long read but in the end very satisfying.

Brill book, really emotional, great to get into the life of the character to go through what he went through kept reading to the end couldn't put it down.

This is quite simply a stunning epic novel.

Boyne grabbed my attention from the devastating opening paragraph and I couldn't help but want to find out what happened to the characters - the main character had even yet to be born!

Boyne depicts the treatment of homosexuals in Ireland, Amsterdam and America and there was a moment of brutal violence which has stayed with me not least for its violence but also the injustice of it. How people can hate others for living different lives is still beyond me.

I loved the historical context given as it helps to place the attitudes, difficulties and triumphs of the characters. I shouldn't have been surprised at Boyne's writing, having loved The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but this is my first adult fiction by him. I have since bought this in hardback so I can admire it on my shelves and bought further adult titles from Boyne.

This will get you thinking and you will definitely miss the characters as you turn that final page.

This was one of my favourite books of the last year. I found it was very easy to read and flowed nicely from one era to another. In fact it was one of those books I didn’t want to end. Cyril’s life was depicted so well, with all the heartaches and high spots well illustrated. The humour was an integral part of the story and made the characters come to life.

I’ll now look for more by John Boyle as I had only ever read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

My favourite book of the year! I cannot say how much I loved this story. I was so sad when it ended and not just because the ending was sad. (although it was in a poignant sort of way).
Beautifully written, no words I can say will do this novel justice so I will keep it short and sweet.
This is a novel that can educate all of us on the social inequalities of Ireland but also highlights the plight of gay men and the injustice that they endured not so long ago.
Told from different perspectives and characters throughout a generation of intertwined lives, this novel is breathtakingly honest, hard to read in places but ultimately uplifting.
Well done John Boyne!

Not my usual genre but am so pleased I read this. Poignant, evocative & emotional. Really captured the hardships faced by women and gay men in Ireland in the 1940s. A real roller coaster, made me want to cry & then laugh at some of Cyril's exploits. Full of unexpected twists and turns, weaving the strands to an altogether unexpected finale. Brilliant & a real must read.

What an excellent snapshot of life in Ireland from the 50's onward. I loved how the story was developed as the years went on and the thread that kept it connected to the beginnings of the story and completed it, at the end. The main character made me smile, feel sad and happy at the same time and regretful of the attitudes of the human race towards each other and things that maybe don't fit 'the norm'. I couldn't put it down once I'd started and I loved particularly, the ending. A definite must read.

Cyril tells the reader his life story, displaying how he and his mother cope with prejudices against illegitimacy and homosexuality. Brilliantly written with both wit and sadness, he describes his road to happiness. I can see this as a TV series and/or a film. Loved it.

I was delighted to find a new writer who could tell a good tale and write so descriptively. I loved this from start to finish and the way the Irish culture of several decades was depicted. There is just the right amount of light and shade and it is a story you can laugh and cry over.. Well worth a read.

This is an absolutely remarkable book.

I went into it blind; I knew there was a bit of buzz around it but had no idea of the plot. To be honest, if I had read a summary, I might not have been overly keen - "the difficulties of growing up gay in 1950s/60s Ireland" sounds like a fairly heavy read. However, whilst the book has tragedy, it is also one of the funniest things I've ever read. And I don't mean wistful smile funny, I mean laugh out loud funny!

The story focuses on Cyril Avery, a boy given up for adoption due to his mother's shameful situation (in 1940s Ireland) of being unmarried. Cyril is adopted by a well-off eccentric couple who offer him little by way of love. As Cyril grows, he realises he thinks about boys an awful lot, especially his friend, the memorable Julian, who he becomes romantically obsessed by. The book charts Cyril's life as he comes to terms with his sexuality, makes massive mistakes and deals with the ups and downs that life brings.

The sections focusing on Cyril's childhood and adolescence are particularly fun. His adoptive parents are both memorable characters and used to great comedic effect - they seem to have been brewed up by a mix of Dickens and Dahl. Meanwhile, Julian, the perfect object of Cyril's affections is another wonderful character, pulling Cyril into many adventures, including a memorably hilarious double-date.

Amongst the laughs of course there are serious themes in the book and the horrific life of a gay man in Ireland of this era is brought home in stark fashion. Cyril's only way to find anything resembling affection is to tour public parks and toilets for seedy couplings, all the while running the risk of arrests and beatings at the hands of the police. His life offers no shortage of drama and there are several very moving episodes in the book.

The dialogue crackles throughout the story. At times naturalistic and believable and at other times snapping along like a high-end sit-com, it is always immensely readable.

The Heart's Invisible Furies is a heart-breaking, hilarious, epic that I struggled to put down. It's characters will live with me for a long time and even thought this is only January, I think I may have just read my book of the year. Well done John Boyne on a marvellous achievement.