The Heart's Invisible Furies: A Novel

Written by John Boyne

Narrated by Stephen Hogan

Named Book of the Month Club's Book of the Year, 2017
Selected one of New York Times Readers’ Favorite Books of 2017
Winner of the 2018 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping, heartfelt saga about the course of one man's life, beginning and ending in post-war Ireland

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 many years, 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9780525494942

John Boyne

John Boyne (Dublín, 1971) se formó en el Trinity College y en la Universidad de East Anglia (Norwich). El niño con el pijama de rayas (Salamandra, 2007), su novela más famosa, obtuvo dos Irish Book Awards y fue finalista del British Book Award, se ha traducido a cincuenta y siete idiomas y ha vendido once millones de ejemplares en todo el mundo. En España, fue galardonada con el Premio de los Lectores 2007 de la revista Qué Leer y permaneció más de un año en las listasde libros más vendidos. Entre la amplia obra narrativa de Boyne, publicada por Salamandra, destacan también Motín en la Bounty, La casa del propósito especial, La apuesta, El ladrón de tiempo, En el corazón del bosque, El pacifista, El secreto de Gaudlin Hall, Las huellas del silencio, Las furias invisibles del corazón y Todas las piezas rotas.

[smits_52 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved the dialogue. The main character Cyril, has a wonderful wit even though his life was terribly difficult as a gay man in 1940s Ireland. This novel is also sweet and tender and filled with love and coincidences !!
I did ,however , find it a bit long.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the tale of a single man and the land of his birth, Ireland. The quest for identity while leading a nomadic lifestyle lends this story a depth that sets it apart from others. Boyne is a real magician as well as a fantastic storyteller.

[bereanna · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Written well but didn’t seem worth finishing. After reading about half the book, I felt it dwelt too much on sexual thoughts and actions to keep my interest. Though I wonder what happens. Oh well.

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Heart’s Invisible Furies is a sweeping saga, mostly set in Dublin, covering multiple generations of an unconventional family over a period of seventy years. It is the story of protagonist Cyril Avery, who is born in 1945 to an unwed mother and adopted by a distant self-absorbed couple. We follow his life as he matures, discovers his homosexuality, and leads a closeted life. In these years, homosexuality is illegal so he must conduct his sexual liaisons in secret. He develops a crush on Julian Woodbead, a childhood acquaintance who becomes a friend and the subject of his unrequited love. Cyril tries to convince himself to lead a so-called “normal” life by dating various women. He suffers, makes mistakes, and pays the price, endearing himself to reader in the process. It provides insight into the challenges of growing up gay in a disapproving society. This book’s timeless themes include the search for identity, the longing for acceptance, the need to develop a sense of home and family, and the desire to love and be loved.

The writing is superb, especially the dialogue, which provides laugh-out-loud humor to offset the abundant episodes of trauma, bigotry, and violent acts. Weighty topics are addressed, such as hate crimes, sex trafficking, and the AIDS epidemic. The story is structured in seven-year increments, during which Cyril experiences significant life events. The main characters are well-developed, especially Cyril and his birth mother, Catherine, whose story forms a subordinate plotline.

Boyne includes hard-hitting social commentary on the Catholic church and Irish social history as he confronts the homophobia and sexism of the mid-twentieth century. Cyril’s life mirrors the social changes being made in Ireland over the course of decades, moving from a time dominated by religion-dominated viewpoints and illegality to the passage of the marriage equality referendum, which parallels Cyril’s journey toward self-acceptance. It is filled with historical references, notable people, IRA violence, sexual content, and political and financial corruption.

It is an ambitious undertaking, though not without a few issues. It includes several stereotypical secondary characters, is a bit repetitious in places, and the primary narrative is carried by numerous unlikely coincidences. The epilogue, for a reason I could not discern, is written in a completely different style than the rest of the book. It is a lengthy book that occasionally indulges in superfluous side-stories.

Overall, I found this book engaging and look forward to reading more of this author’s work. Recommended to those that enjoy multi-generational family sagas and journeys of self-discovery.

[nogomu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved every, single page of this book. I wish I could start all over again, or that it would just keep going and going.

[eavans-914612 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't even know if I'll ever be able to write a coherent review about how stunningly human, heart-breaking, and yet compassionate this book was but just know I'll it in my heart for a very long time. This is probably my favorite book of all time and I don't know how to process it. Please, whatever you are doing, find a copy and read this. I'm sat crying like a right mess and I never want this feeling to leave.
___

“I’ve lost people before. I’ve known violence, I’ve known bigotry, I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive."

*

“Does it ever get any easier?” she asked. I nodded. “It does,” I said. “You reach a point where you realize that your life must go on regardless. You choose to live or you choose to die. But then there are moments, things that you see, something funny on the street or a good joke that you hear, a television program that you want to share, and it makes you miss the person who’s gone terribly and then it’s not grief at all, it’s more a sort of bitterness at the world for taking them away from you."

[burritapal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"I remember a friend of mine once telling me that we hate what we fear in ourselves."

"...their secretions, which seep forth from their appendages when aroused, are repellent. You're lucky that you will never have to endure the indignity of relations with the male member. The vagina is a much purer instrument. I Feel an admiration for the vagina that I simply have never felt toward the penis."

Though fiction, this reads a bit like an autobiography. Cyril Avery is given up for adoption by his mother, a 16-year-old teenager from a village in County Cork (where my ancestors are from), who is run out of town by the village priest for"her sins." Cyril is adopted by a wealthy family, but isn't really"loved" as their own. He learns early on that he likes boys, but more importantly, learns that he must hide this fact, as being gay in Ireland is against the law. As much gay literature runs, he too leads a terribly sad, lonely and violent life because of the stinking heterosexual, homophobic humans that surround us in this world. But read this; it's uplifting, at least in the end. And if you are not gay, you will get an idea of what a battle gays have to go through, just to live out their lives. Well, this is about a white, gay man, so at least his skin color wasn't one of his problems.

[Elena 25?☕? · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"This story made me laugh, cry, and infuriate.

It is a story where prejudices are taken to the extreme, and where religion, pain, unrequited love, and fears are the protagonists.

It is narrated in the first person from the perspective of Cyril Avery, an elderly man who tells his story from the moment his mother became pregnant in 1945 until the referendum of 2015 in Ireland, when marriage between people of the same gender was approved. Throughout his life, Cyril struggles with the shame and guilt he feels due to his sexual orientation, in a place where being gay is seen as something bad.

I liked the author's note at the end of the book, from which I quote a sentence: 'The desire to fall in love and to share life with someone is not a homosexual or heterosexual presumption. It is human. We are all dazzled by a pretty face or a good heart.'

In short, a novel that touched my ❤️." (Translated from Spanish)

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The title of John Boyne's 2017 novel “The Heart's Invisible Furies” stops you in your tracks. Does this really sound like something I want to read? What could it possibly be about? It sounds too serious, too angry, too challenging. The fact that it's 580 pages long is intimidating in itself.

I still can't decide if it's a good title or not, but I can now say it is a terrific novel, much easier to read than you might think but not so easy to grapple with.

This is the story of man's life, from birth to death. That man is Cyril Avery, who is not a real Avery, as his adoptive parents tell him repeatedly during his youth. Maude Avery, his adoptive mother, spends most of her time closed up in a room smoking cigarettes and writing novels she hopes nobody will ever read. (They do, and after her early death from cancer she becomes one of Ireland's greatest writers.) Charles Avery, his adoptive father, is a wealthy man but also a cheat, both on his wife and on his taxes.

As for his real mother and father, we read about them too. Catherine Goggin gets pregnant as a teenage girl, then is disowned by her parents and banned from the church and the town by an intolerant and hypocritical Irish priest. As this is Cyril's first-person account of his life, we know Catherine will reappear again somewhere in his story, and in fact she does several times. Their lives intersect at various points in their lives before they discover they are actually mother and son.

Irish intolerance shapes Cyril's own life, as he is a homosexual and Ireland despises homosexuals even more than it does unwed mothers, And so he must keep his heart's furies as invisible as possible, at least until he moves to Amsterdam later in his life. Before that, however, Cyril actually gets married and has a son, though not in that order. He deserts his wife immediately after the wedding ceremony, disappearing for years, leaving his bride in a country where divorce, too, is not tolerated.

If so much of the novel is about separation and distancing, Boyne eventually brings everyone together — mother and son, husband and wife, father and son, prodigal and homeland. Yes, the story is as serious as the title suggests, yet parts of it are as funny as anything P.G. Wodehouse ever wrote.

[bibliophageoncoffee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

More like a 4.5, but I'm rounding up since I enjoyed being in this world so much, despite the fact that the entire plot hinged on an improbable amount of coincidences. I almost never reread books, but this is one that I would consider revisiting someday.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this but not as much as everyone else apparently. I had a hard time with the tone of the book which at times struck me as too lighthearted for the serious moments. I should have written down examples as I read but I didn't. I also thought the Irish tropes or stereotypes were caricatures: the nasty priests, the closeted married men, etc. The number of times Cyril and his mother's paths crossed strained credulity. There were a few factual errors that should have been caught by editors, the most glaring, a woman hemophiliac. Women don't get hemophilia they are carriers.

[Lilix · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Terrible, there is no way to forgive so much pain and infamy. The church should offer eternal apologies for these abuses against so many innocents. (Translated from Spanish)

[UrsulaGeisse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible book! Majestic dialogues and grand characters. (Translated from Spanish)

[DianaAmarilis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For me, this book took me out of my comfort zone. I feel that it's the first time I've read such a comprehensive book that tackles controversial topics in a fluid and even comedic way. It's super extensive; I must confess that the first 40% of the book was hard for me, I wasn't engaged, but as I progressed, it completely captivated me. It's a book that requires reflection, thought, and analysis. It's a book that everyone should read because it allows you to develop the empathy that we all need to have. (Translated from Spanish)

[H4thor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A harrowing story about sexual abuse, power, deception, and corruption... within the Irish Catholic Church. (Translated from Spanish)

[urraca99 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Instead of addressing such a slippery issue directly, it skirts around it to touch on it only tangentially. The denunciation of the hypocrisy of the Church falls short. (Translated from Spanish)

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Heart's Invisible Furies is a moving novel about a young unmarried Irish Catholic girl shunned by her family and church for being pregnant in 1945. Forced to leave her home, she travels to Dublin to find a job, lodging, and to have her child.
The story then follows her son through his life, and his relationships, heartbreaks, triumphs, and losses. As a gay man in conservative Ireland in the 1950-60s. Cyril must face the ignorant opinions and hatred of his fellow citizens. As the world changes and events occur (AIDS, 9/11, legalization of same-sex marriage), it is interesting to see how people change/don't change.
I loved this book. It really opened my eyes to the pain people endured when not able to freely express their identity. But more than that, it showed the true meaning of a family and real love. Both funny and sad, but ultimately heartwarming. Read it!

[José Muñoz Flores · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At times it seemed a bit contrived, but when viewed as a whole, it's a complete story, endearing, sad at times but real, which is what makes it so poignant. And although it may not reach the level of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it did provide me with some enjoyable moments. Perhaps a tad long, though. (Translated from Spanish)

[RomanAngelini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let's see... The story is very well told, and despite the time jumps, it is not complicated. But I must admit that I was about to give up on it. The first four or five chapters were extremely difficult for me. I really couldn't find any meaning in it. The text is too descriptive, especially regarding things that are not central to the main story (it names places, routes, and so on). It really made me want to abandon the reading before finishing a chapter, and I refused to pick it up again until the next day. After those initial chapters, it honestly became very enjoyable and gained good momentum. I would say it could lose a few pages, but overall I liked it a lot. I would like to know if anyone else experienced the same thing. (Translated from Spanish)

[lara335 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful novel that did make me both laugh & cry. Born in the 1940’s Cyril navigates his homosexuality in a judgemental, priest-bound Ireland, a more tolerant Amsterdam, and a New York stricken by AIDS, before returning to his homeland, making amends & discovering the love of family - whatever that might be.

Great cast of buoyant characters, including the sometimes cowardly & weak central figure.

This book pulled me in slowly, to reveal the bigotry & cruel judgements of the latter-half of the 20th century alongside life-affirming kindness and the power of forgiveness.

[pollyannapitbull · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably one of the most engaging books I have had the privilege of reading. Laugh out loud funny as well as heartbreakingly touching. An uncut downable read.

[GladysNeuquén · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very nice story. The protagonist recounts his life. Nothing more, nothing less. A boy given up for adoption to a well-off couple in Ireland. He grows up discovering that he is in love with his friend. The author narrates how homosexuality was perceived in Ireland (although I would add that it's similar in almost the entire world): prejudices, discrimination, mistreatment, persecution, imprisonment, ... and then the emergence of AIDS in the world (again, discrimination, mistreatment, ignorance,..). A novel that captivates. (Translated from Spanish)

[Estefania s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A novel that starts a bit slow in the first 120 pages but then you can't put it down. It tells the story of a priest in the first person, where he recounts his life story. (Translated from Spanish)

[Jopa20q8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The cruelty and harm in the crimes of child abuse in the Irish Catholic Church (noting that it occurred very similarly around the world) and the concealment by the ecclesiastical authorities responsible for not stopping it in time. From the perspective of a priest from his origins to the end of his life. As a series of temporal "flashbacks" that makes it very entertaining despite the terrible events it recounts, we cannot stop reading it until the end. Highly recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

[tduvally-355175 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely amazing!

[shannonrose4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A photograph, new friends and a new start.
Opening in disgrace due to bitter circumstances, this coming to age story in 1950’s Ireland is as much a portrait of a changing society as it is a masterfully woven tale of acceptance and grace.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am so glad that I recently discovered John Boyne’s books, and this one might even be the best of them so far. Spanning more than seventy years from his both in unpromising circumstances in Dublin in 1945 through to the second decade of the twenty-first century, it follows the unconventional life of Cyril Avery.

His beginnings were inauspicious, with his mother, Catherine, becoming pregnant at sixteen in a small village in West Cork. In those days, the power of the Roman Catholic Church was incontestable, and Catherine is denounced from the pulpit by the local priest, and forced to leave home. Like most women in her position in Ireland at the time, she ends up I Dublin, and gives her baby up for adoption. In many ways, the baby is exceptionally fortunate, being adopted by the Avery family. Charles is a wealthy banker, waging a constant (and frequently unsuccessful) battle against the tax authorities. Maude is a writer who lives almost in dread of her novels ever becoming popular – she writes to escapes the perceived miseries of her life. Charles and Maude are generous to Cyril, but they never manage to display anything approaching love, and he grows up with many of the trappings of wealth, but in a n emotional vacuum. At the age of seven, he encounters Julian, the son of his father’s lawyer, and is immediately smitten, making discoveries about his own emotional compass.

The novel moves forward in seven year spells, although we quickly learn what has happened in the various interims. Cyril progresses through school and then comes to work in the Education Department of the Irish Civil Service. Most of his enterprises go sadly awry, and after a particularly difficult error of judgement and behaviour, he relocates to Amsterdam, where he finally falls in love. After a period of stability in Amsterdam, he moves to America in the early 1980s, before tragedy strikes, driving him back to his Irish homeland.

Boyne, as always, writes engagingly, drawing the reader in right from the start. When I embarked upon the first chapters, about Catherine’s mishap and cruel treatment at the hands of the church and her own family, I worried that we might be in for a so-called misery memoir, of the order of Angela’s Ashes. While no doubt very worthy, I feel that a little of such writing can go an awfully wrong way. This is, however, nothing like that at all. It offers a heady melange of emotions, with joy, sadness, fear and courage, all underwritten with a huge stock of humour. I also enjoyed the cameo appearances from a lot of prominent Irishmen, Brendan Behan appears is an uproarious pub scene (well, where else?), and various Irish political figures, such as Eamonn de Valera, Jack Lynch and Charles Haughey, enjoy walk on parts. I am sure there were loads more, but, like most mainland Britons, my knowledge of Irish history is woefully inadequate.

This is a long book but one that flows very quickly, and repays the reader’s efforts many times over.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cyril Avery was born in Dublin in 1945, to a young unwed mother whose family kicked her out when they learned of her pregnancy. Cyril was adopted by Charles and Maude Avery, an eccentric couple caught up in their own lives more than their son’s. In his teenage years, Cyril realized his feelings for his best friend Julian were something more than platonic, but it took many years to accept his sexuality and risk the consequences of coming out to others, especially at a time when homosexuality was against the law.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies follows Cyril’s lifelong quest for acceptance and love, with the evolution of LGBTQ rights always in the background. The major sections of the narrative take place at 7-year intervals, with each “fast-forward” quickly resolving open issues and setting up the next phase of Cyril’s life. John Boyne skillfully manages these jumps without sacrificing character development. And while the novel deals with serious themes and is often quite poignant, the storytelling is filled with irony and humor. It’s an unusual approach, but one that is largely effective.

I admit it took a while for me to become fully immersed in Cyril’s story. His childhood character didn’t ring true -- he was perhaps too precocious -- and his early sexual exploits, while essential to his character development, felt a bit repetitive. But when Cyril reached his late twenties I found him more relatable, and a significant plot development sent his life in an entirely new direction. I loved the way his story carried on from that point, and Boyne’s ending is absolutely perfect.

[mercef_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hold on to your hats - I have just given my first 5 star rating! John Boyne has written an amazing novel so thank you to the friends who recommended this book to me. I don’t recall ever reading a novel where I could so clearly “see” the story. This book would make a wonderful series, as the characters were so well crafted and the dialogue so clever. The story of Cecil Avery, a gay man growing up in twentieth century Ireland - witty, poignant, uplifting (and such a great title).

[samnreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“You’ve done nothing since we first met but make me like you. Despite my best efforts. And it’s quite annoying, actually, because I was determined to hate you.”
“And I was equally determined to love you.”

I have very few ways to put this book into words, and I will not attempt to. There are many other reviews. For now, I'll say it's incredible and that I loved it. It's everything I want a book to be and it's masterful. It's straight to the favorites shelf.