The Heart's Invisible Furies: A Novel Paperback – March 6, 2018

The invisible furies of the protagonist, Cyril Avery, are in full view for the reader to digest. An epic that spans seventy years and 600 pages, it has a picaresque dash, but, within is a heart-wrenching story of one adopted man’s secret—that he is gay—in an Irish theocracy that doesn’t tolerate it. A heinously mean and hypocritical priest threw his biological mother, Catherine, out of the church in west Cork when she was pregnant with him, in 1945. This was done in front of the entire congregation. Later, it was discovered that the priest fathered two children.Catherine goes to Dublin and gives up Cyril for adoption. Well-to-do Maude Avery, a literary writer and dogged chain-smoker, and Charles, a tax-evading, scandal-raising father, raise him. They always remind Cyril, “You are not a real Avery,” and in fact tell him he will not inherit anything, and at age 18 his tenancy will be finished. Cyril accepts this and doesn’t complain.When Cyril meets Julian Woodbead at age seven, the son of his father’s lawyer, he secretly forms a serious crush on the same aged boy, who he meets again later in boarding school. “Even at that tender age I knew that there was something about me that was different and that it would be impossible ever to put right.” Cyril and Julian form a friendship that lasts until Cyril leaves for Amsterdam during an unforgettable event.In Amsterdam, he is able to be openly gay, finally, and finds the love of his life, Bastiaan, an infectious disease doctor who tends to those suffering from AIDS. Life opens up for Cyril, now living free from identity fear, but also fills him with somber empathy when he meets some of Bastiaan’s patients. The story then takes us to NYC, and then again back to Ireland. Except for a stint at the Anne Frank house, life as a civil servant agrees with him.I wrote a rather abbreviated chain of events that are just light containers of the heavyweight narrative beneath. In lesser hands, this could have been a story dishing out rage, platitudes, and contrivance. However, despite the several coincidences and a few straw men and women that Boyne inserts, the author is a generous writer who maintains a soulful, droll (oh, the dialogue is flawless!) character-driven story.What we see is a reasonable, ordinary and entirely normal man with noble aspects and fatal flaws. Cyril is quiet observer who is surrounded by a host of commonplace and eccentric characters, including his adoptive parents, who are assuredly offbeat and oddball. And nothing is commonplace in Boyne’s descriptions. His parents, not unkind, named him after a pet spaniel they once owned, and often treat him like he, too, is a pet of the house. But they talk to him like he is an adult, often forgetting his presence as meaningful.‘“Do you enjoy being a writer?” asks Julian, age seven, to Maude. “No, of course not. It’s a hideous profession. Entered into by narcissists who think their pathetic little imaginations will be of interest to people they’ve never met.”’ Then, Cyril inquires why Maude doesn’t like people to read her books (she is in full contempt of popular, blockbuster books, and the less who read her books, the better), she replies, ‘”For the same reason that I don’t walk into strangers’ houses and tell them how many bowel movements I’ve enjoyed since breakfast.”’The book is littered with quirky conversations, people, and events. But Boyne never loses track of the plot—solid and steady—or Cyril, who is in most every scene. The motif of identity is prevalent, but also, the question of what makes up a family is ripe in the themes. For Cyril, as the reader will discover, creates a family of other seekers, or passively inherits from circumstances that arose and joined him in his path to “Who is Cyril Avery?”His journey is a memorable odyssey, which includes the story of Ireland as a critical patriarch, to Cyril and to all the Irish people. I was riveted from beginning to end.

Overall: The Hearts Invisible Furies follows the story of Cyril Avery from 1945 through 2015 in post-war Ireland and other countries throughout his life. A cast of unforgettable characters, great writing, and alllllll the emotions make this book a real winner 7.5/10The Good: There are many different aspects to love about this book, but my favorite is the main character, Cyril. This is the type of novel where you form a deep and strong attachment with the main character; he feels like a friend and this is only done through exceptional writing and character development.The book is divided into different parts, each covering a significant portions of Cyril’s life, initially in Ireland, then a period in Amsterdam, on to New York, and finally coming back to Ireland. Cyril Avery is given up as a baby by an unwed teen mother in Ireland. Cyril is adopted by the Averys (Maude and Charles), whose treatment of Cyril is more of a business arrangement than that of what you would expect from parents.“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.”The first time I read "you are not a real Avery" my heart broke from Cyril. Though this in itself is sad (and there are many sad parts throughout this) the author does this is in almost a humorous way by creating eccentric and unique characters. The characters, and I mean almost all the characters are unique, complex, and one of the best parts of this book.During the course of this book I felt every emotion... multiple times, and often quite extremely. Not just one glistening tear crying, but ugly crying. Not just a chuckle, but laughing so hard my sides hurt. I think you can understand what I mean by this, but this book is powerful and will stay with you for awhile. It is heartbreaking, funny, intelligent, complicated, but more than anything I think it has a resounding tone of hope and illustrates the need to just keep going, no matter what.I very much enjoyed the historical component of this book. The book takes place in a very real period in Ireland's history, when being or expressing homosexuality meant harsh judgment and persecution by friends and family, excommunication from the Church, and even imprisonment. Though much has changed (thank goodness!) the book is a reminder that people suffered under these rules surprisingly not that long ago. There is also a good amount of discussion regarding the AIDS epidemic. The humor the author uses throughout helps cushion that reality but it was eye opening to me, and I found myself looking up more about this time period and many of the points addressed.The Bad: I do not have that much to say here other than certain parts seemed a bit long and there was lots of sadness. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.Favorite Quotes:“Maybe there were no villains in my mother’s story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.”“I’ve spent so much time pushing the boat out that I forgot to jump on and now it’s out beyond the harbour on the high seas, but it’s very nice to look at.”“I've always believed that if women could only collectively harness the power that they have then they'd rule the world.”“If there is one thing I've learned in more than seven decades of life, it's that the world is a completely fucked-up place. You never know what's around the corner and it's often something unpleasant.”“What you know about women,” replied Maude, “could be written in large font on the back of a postage stamp and there’d still be room for the Lord’s Prayer."“You look like a Greek God sent down by the immortal Zeus from Mount Olympus to taunt the rest of us inferior beings with your astonishing beauty, I said, which somehow in translation came out as "you look fine, why?”“Do you enjoy being a writer, Mrs Avery?” asked Julian.“No, of course not, she said. “It’s a hideous profession. Entered into by narcissists who think their pathetic little imaginations will be of interest to people they’ve never met.”