The Spinning Heart

A Novel

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Pub Date 25 Feb 2014 | Archive Date 24 Feb 2014

Description

Winner of the Irish Book Award
Finalist for the Booker Prize

This “affecting” debut is “reminiscent of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying” as it paints a vivid portrait of a working-class community in contemporary rural Ireland (New York Times Book Review).

“One of my favorite Irish books . . . Moving, atmospheric and beautiful.” —Tana French

In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark, and sweetly poignant. Donal Ryan’s brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in fiction.
 
Irish Book of the Decade (Dublin Book Festival)
First Book Award (The Guardian)
“Newcomer of the Year” and “Book of the Year” (Irish Book Award)
“Best Book of the Year” (Library Journal)
Winner of the Irish Book Award
Finalist for the Booker Prize

This “affecting” debut is “reminiscent of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying” as it paints a vivid portrait of a working-class community...

A Note From the Publisher

US Only Rights

US Only Rights


Advance Praise

Winner - The Guardian First Book Award

Winner of two Irish Book Awards - Newcomer of The Year and Book of The Year

Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize


"Irish author Ryan's debut takes readers to the 'heart' of hardscrabble life in Ireland in the era after the economic boom and bust of 2008. The novel received Book of the Year honors at the Irish Book Awards. . . . Reminiscent of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, this book gives readers a story—or rather stories—told from multiple perspectives, each chapter using a different voice. . . . Disturbing and unnerving but ultimately beautiful." -- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"The traditional epithet for a good first novel is 'promising'. The Spinning Heart, however, is far more than that. Instead, it's the unambiguous announcement of a genuine and apparently fully-formed new talent." -- The Spectator

"A funny, moving, technically inventive first novel.... Structurally the novel gestures to William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, while Ryan's sensitive observations on Irish life seem responsive to the work of his compatriot Patrick McCabe. That Ryan does not look out of place in such literary company is a measure of his achievement." -- The Financial Times

"The recession has hit rural Ireland, and 'the sky is falling down." Through 21 different voices, Donal Ryan's virtuoso debut novel pieces together a fractured portrait of a community in shock. . . . What is so special about Ryan's novel is that it seems to draw speech out of the deepest silences; the testimony of his characters rings rich and true – funny and poignant and banal and extraordinary – and we can't help but listen." -- The Guardian

"I have ordered a copy of The Spinning Heart for everyone I know who loves to read. What a treasure of a book." -- Natascha McElhone

"I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding." -- John Boyne

"A first novel that's up-to-date in its concerns but that also transcends the merely topical in its bleak, if often savagely funny, vision of a rural Ireland. Donal Ryan has an imaginative insight into his characters that's all his own and a furious energy to his prose that gives arrestingly vivid life to these blighted souls." -- John Boland

"Ryan's feat is considerable. Narrative and character information is distributed among so many different voices and yet we never feel at a loss. Best of all, Ryan's ear for speech is acute...Given a novel as brilliantly realized as The Spinning Heart, I see no reason to look anywhere but the present. For Donal Ryan, the future is now." -- Declan Hughes

"A new Irish writer of the very first order. Donal Ryan is the real deal." -- The Sunday Independent

"For all the harshness of language and the often brutal experiences, The Spinning Heart is unexpectedly tender. . . . An exciting contemporary novel about the lost and the wounded that listens to the present without discarding either the sins of the fathers or the literary legacy of the past." -- The Irish Times

"Startling audacity... [The Spinning Heart] may be slim in size, but it is hugely ambitious in structure and devastating in its emotional impact. Too often contemporary fiction is criticized for not engaging enough with contemporary issues, but this breathtakingly empathetic account of a community crumbling under the pressures of the recession deserves to stand as a companion piece to Anne Enright's wonderful The Forgotten Waltz, also set against the boom and bust of recent Irish history." -- Lisa Allardice, Guardian First Book Award Chair andGuardian Review Editor

Winner - The Guardian First Book Award

Winner of two Irish Book Awards - Newcomer of The Year and Book of The Year

Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

...


Marketing Plan

Author available for media interviews.

Tie-in to St. Patrick's-Day-inspired coverage of Irish culture.

Widespread review attention in general print and on-line review publications .

Featured in Irish-interest media.Featured in financial media that covers literature --WSJ, Financial Times, NPR's Marketplace, Bloomberg Business Week, etc. -- due to its focus on the human costs of Ireland's economic collapse.

Major ARC printing and distribution.

Indie Next - September White Box Mailing.

B&N Discover Submission

Author available for media interviews.

Tie-in to St. Patrick's-Day-inspired coverage of Irish culture.

Widespread review attention in general print and on-line review publications .

Featured in...


Available Editions

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ISBN 9781586422240
PRICE $16.00 (USD)

Average rating from 28 members


Featured Reviews

In The Spinning Heart, a small Irish town is suffering under the weight of the late 2000s economic bust that saw industry leave the country and the building boom come to a screeching halt. Unemployment is rampant. Alcohol use, always an issue in Ireland and Irish literature, is also rising. Ryan has chosen to present his portrait of the town and time through snapshots of town residents, spoken in their voices.

Chief among them is Bobby Mahon, product of a rough home, but largely appreciated in the town. He grew up with a cruel father and a mother he loved who was powerless to stop the man. On visiting a friend's house for dinner he sees:

"Their father was wiry and kind-looking. He had a lovely smile. He'd warm you with it. You knew there was nothing in him only good nature....It twisted my soul, the pleasure of that house, the warmth of it and the laughter; it was nearly unbearable to be there and to have half my mind filled with the chill and the gloom and the thick silence of our cottage." (loc 98)

The writing throughout is excellent, often rough, occasionally lyrical. The most lyrical passage for me was an immigrant's view of the land, an unemployed worker from Siberia.

"There is no flatness in this land. It is all small hills and hidden valleys. Birds sing that I cannot see; they hide in trees and fly in covered skies. The horizon is close and small. There is daily rain that makes the earth green.
A short journey in any direction ends at the sea." (loc 308)

Each person reveals another layer of the town's life as well as their own.

Definitely recommended

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for the purpose of an unbiased review.

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This book takes place at the decline of the Cetlic Tiger in Ireland. Pokey Burke is an unscrupulous builder who is at the center of this particular story. The story happens in a village on the outskirts of Limerick. Pokey, who hasn’t paid taxes or stamps for his employees, shuts up shop leaving housing estates unfinished and a trail of woe behind him.

The book is told by 20 odd people with a chapter each going into detail how they were screwed over in some way shape or form by Pokey, from employees who can’t collect the dole because he didn’t pay their stamps to people left behind in dealing with the fallout, mainly his father. I liked how the book was laid out, the individual stories and how each person dealt with their own misery. The take on rural village life is spot on in how people gossip and act, the language used as well as the typical Irish mentality of looking out for number one when the need suits.

There is a lot of swearing in this book, also the dreaded “C” word is used less than a handful of times, but it is used quite a bit in Ireland, so consider yourself warned. I think that some of the vernacular might be hard to follow for most people.

I think that this is an amazing first book and very well written. It brought me back to when I lived there. I look forward to reading his other book.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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this book won "book of the year" at the irish book awards. if james joyce had published every single book he had ever written in 2012, this book still would have won. hi, i'm karen - i make bold declarative statements. welcome.

this book is a stunner. like broken harbor, it speaks to the devastating economic and social climate in ireland after the death of the celtic tiger. in this particular, unnamed, small town, when the local construction company goes out of business and its owner skips town without paying his workers their wages, it is just one factor contributing to a series of events that will ultimately end in kidnapping and murder.

this book captures small-town life perfectly. it is told in a chorus of voices, where each chapter is narrated (in dialect) by a single character, and through their individual voices, we see a whole tapestry of resentments, ambitions, yearning, grief, admiration - the shared, embarrassed past and the shining, small-scale heroes. it is so deftly handled in such a short book - it is nothing short of astonishing.

it is funny, it is sad, it is dark, it is a scattershot of singular, lonely existences that make up this heartbreaking jewel of a novel. but there is a story here - it is not just a collection of experiences, it just happens to be narrated by a number of different people and perspectives, some unreliable, for sure, but the interlocking bits do make up a cohesive story. it is gripping, it is wonderful, and i cannot wait to read more from him.

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I am at a loss on how best to review this gorgeous piece of writing. It is the easiest 5-star rating I have given this year.

I'll start with the facts, then. 160 pages, 21 chapters. Each chapter is narrated by a different character who is somehow linked to a small town outside of Dublin following the economic crash. The chapters are all written using dialect, but never so much that it is difficult to read or comprehend. The chapters weave together with references overlapping and tying everything together into one cohesive story. I started reading this around 11:30pm and was not able to stop until I had finished it a few hours later. I kept telling myself I would read "just one more chapter'" but then there was a new character to meet and a new mystery to unravel and a new voice to explore.

One of the greatest strengths in this novel is the dialect. The dialect is written so brilliantly that it legitimately feels as though 21 different people narrate the story. I never got lost or confused between the characters because somehow the voices were so distinctly crafted - with little turns of phrase here and there that let you know this is a new person with his own story to tell.

The story itself is also deeply compelling. Although the larger story seems tied to Dell leaving the Dublin area, the immediate plot is more closely linked to the collapse of a construction company in a small unnamed town outside of Dublin. The manager of the company had been illegally not reporting his employees, making it impossible for them to collect unemployment or a legally required pension. The manager skips town, leaving the men who worked for him lost and drifting, but still trying to keep up the picture of machismo and aura of not caring that seems to be the picture of the Irish man (at least in literature). The novel opens with a chapter from the perspective of the company's foreman, Bobby, and the rest of the novel is basically spent unraveling everything we learn in this first chapter.

Every single narrator is somewhat self-absorbed and unreliable, but we still get these beautiful, painful depictions of what they truly think of themselves. There are points where the reader starts to know more than our narrators and you just want to jump into the book and mediate some communication, or give someone a hug, or stop that person from making a terrible decision based on half-truths. You start to feel like you know these people and this town, and it is impossible to walk away.

The story was in turns beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking and unforgettable. I think this will be a work I revisit time and time again, getting something new from it each time. It's cliche to say that it brought to mind Joyce, but what it brought to mind was my discovery of Joyce and the way that beautiful language can be used to communicate painful things.

I highly recommend this work.

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Donal Ryan’s debut novel tells the story of a rural town in the wake of Ireland’s financial crisis. There are over a dozen voices in the narrative with each section being dedicated to a first-person narrator in the community. Their unique view points and voices are what make this book a compulsive read. They are there to hide secrets, only to reveal them later, pulling apart the notions that both they and the reader might have had.

The town is suffering from a terrible recession with many of the people out of work or being paid way below the minimum wage. What was once a prosperous area has now been abandoned. The most obvious scars are made apparent right away: ghost estates–the housing developments that were contracted to be built, but after the collapse, now stand incomplete and vacant.

Ryan has done something interesting. Like previously mentioned, each section is dedicated to the narration of a particular resident of the town. The novel begins with Bobby, who is idolized by many and he is still able to get some work as a builder even though the contractors have fled leaving many men out of work. He mentions people in the town, and feelings and opinions he has that certainly come to foreshadow events later on.

Each section is impressively narrated in that person’s specific voice (void of proper grammar in favor of dialect). The characters seem to repeat similar story lines, which the reader at first will tilt their head and go, huh? But it all becomes clearer and more gripping with the introduction of each new section. It would be a fool’s errand to try to keep straight the names and affiliations of everyone mentioned. Just let the prose carry you forward and you will soon have a hold of all of the players and their importance.

The Spinning Heart finds its title from the metal heart that hangs from Bobby’s father’s gate. Any time someone goes through it, they mention how it spins.

Like the heart, the story spins forward. Their derelict landscape, which at first takes up the beginning of the book evolves into a showcase for these character’s lives, until we finally see harsher stories being held right underneath the surface of the novel. When they finally clearly make their way to the forefront, the reader is wrenched by the desperation and exhaustion of everyone involved.

The novel is impressive. It was a pleasure to see how Ryan crafted his prose to hide dark threats and the actual desires of the characters. Parts were unnerving when you could read the inner thoughts of the dastardly characters and feel the anguish of others as it buried itself deep within your own mind.

I’m hesitant to give away much of the plot, because bits of the mysterious element are sprinkled throughout. Like the spinning heart of the novel, I kept moving page after page, feeling the depths of the characters and the desolate world they now live in.

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My first thought is that this reminded me of the writings of Maeve Binchy but with more grit and gristle. Each chapter is a story told by intertwining characters, moving the story forward and revealing bits and pieces of the lives they lead in this depressed Irish community. Irish story telling at its best.

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This is an amazing story told by many voices during an economical collapse in a small Irish town. It's incredible that a novel can be presented from multiple points-of-view and yet remain cohesive. This story will touch on all of your emotions and leave you satisfied when it is all over. I highly recommend this read!

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