The Heart's Invisible Furies
Adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple who remind him that he is not a real member of their family, Cyril embarks on a journey to find himself and where he came from, discovering his identity, a home, a country, and much more throughout a long lifetime.
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In 1945, sixteen-year-old Catherine Goggin is shamed out of a Cork parish for being unmarried and pregnant. Her son Cyril is adopted by a wealthy Dublin couple as a kind of pet, and the novel checks in on him every seven years as he grows up gay in mid-century Ireland.
The Heart's Invisible Furies was written by John Boyne and published in 2017. Boyne is also the author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, A Ladder to the Sky, and many other novels.
The Heart's Invisible Furies spans 70 years of Irish history through Cyril Avery's life, with chapters set in seven-year intervals. The structure is engaging and the prose accessible. Most readers find it propulsive despite the 600-page length.
The Heart's Invisible Furies is 688 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Heart's Invisible Furies takes most readers 10 to 15 hours to finish.
The Heart's Invisible Furies is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Heart's Invisible Furies is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
