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Book of the month: The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry is published by Canongate Books, €16.99
I have recommended Night Boat to Tangier to many friends, and regularly gift it too. Longlisted for the Booker Prize, and shortlisted for novel of the year at the Irish Book Awards, it is the work that propelled its author, Kevin Barry, to international prominence. Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is a film adaptation, starring Ruth Negga, Michael Fassbender and Domhnall Gleeson, though I would urge you to read the book first.
Barry (54), who lives in Co Sligo, is a multiple award-winning author; his prizes include the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Goldsmiths Prize, while his skills extend to being a playwright and screenwriter too.
However, it is as a novelist that he will surely forever excel, and he cements his enormous reputation with his latest offering, The Heart in Winter.
The setting of the story in Butte, Montana, in 1891 might have been a turnoff for me had I simply picked the book up and read the flyleaf, but how wrong I would have been to simply put it back on the shelf. Barry turns what might have seemed an uninspiring topic and setting into a wonderful work of art. As his fellow author Sheena Patel, herself a film director, wrote, “If the Coen brothers were to write a novel, it would be this.”
The storyline
This is the story of an Irishman, Tom Rourke, with a low paying job who earns extra dollars writing letters for illiterate men in search of brides.
He spends his free time in brothels, writing songs, and feeding his opium habit. He falls in love at the start of the book with a palomino horse, and with Polly Gillespie, a newly arrived mail-order bride who is married to Long Anthony Harrington.
Very quickly, Tom and Polly are striking out for San Francisco with a bag full of stolen money. What follows is for you to discover.
A quality of Barry’s writing is the beauty in every word, sentence and paragraph. Not a single word is used carelessly. Every line of the novel is to be savoured, some that also raise a smile (Tom Rourke salted the eggs unambiguously). His characters are each painted carefully and meticulously – even the horse.
This is a tale of love, adventure, and a story that will make you laugh out loud. It is a gem.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is published by Faber & Faber, €14.49
Seventy years after it was published, William Golding’s frightening tale of schoolboys stranded on a desert island remains a classic, and has featured for some as part of their English studies at school. Unlike many books that students grew to dislike, this story is captivating, embracing many different themes, some of them uncomfortable.
Golding, who died in 1993, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature a decade before that, and won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980. Yet it is his first novel, Lord of the Flies, that remains his classic work.
He chillingly depicts the descent into savagery of a group of boys who find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Realising that they have no adult supervision after their plane crashes, they first embrace a spirit of adventure. Their attempts to organise themselves, elect a leader, and hunt for food, soon go awry as rivalry, fear, and cruelty eventually overwhelm them, with devastating consequences.
Day, by Michael Cunningham, is published by 4th Estate, €24.64
Michael Cunningham is a writer’s writer, and with such classics as A Home at the End of the World and The Hours as testament to his skill, it is no surprise that his mantlepiece is laden with accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize.
His latest creation is Day, a story of love and loss, and the struggles and limitations of family life. A novel very much of its time, it explores how we must learn to live together and apart.
Set between 2019 and 2021, it tells the story of Dan and Isabel, who live in Brooklyn, but they are slowly drifting apart. Living in their attic is Isabel’s wayward brother, Robbie, and his departure from the house threatens to break the family apart.
Lockdown comes and Dan and Isabel are trapped, with their children, while Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone and with just a secret Instagram life for company. When the crisis ends, the family has to deal with a new reality – what they have lost and how they will go on.
Spike Island, by John Crotty, is published by Merrion Press, €18.99
A recent visit to Cork had me sourcing venues to visit, one of which was Spike Island. While that visit was postponed for another time, the timely arrival of John Crotty’s history of the island has simply fuelled my desire to make that trip. Subtitled, The Rebels, Residents and Crafty Criminals of Ireland’s Historic Island, those words are a perfect summation of the 300 pages.
Originally a monastic outpost, and then a fortress, Spike Island became a prison, established to intern a nation. It has a 1,300-year history; more than two centuries of which was spent off-limits to the public. There is a rich and varied story to be told, and Crotty does it well. Who even remembers that the notorious crime boss, The General, was an inmate?
A journey with Spike Island is a trip through many key moments in Ireland’s history, and this read will have you making a trip to Cork, and planning a visit to what was once the most important penal location in the world.
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