The Heart in Winter
by Kevin Barry
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Pub Date 6 Jun 2024 | Archive Date 6 Jun 2024
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Description
He was ready to die for love
He just needed to find the right girl
October, 1891. Butte, Montana. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers.
Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and balladmaker, but also a doper, a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.
A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho. Briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunsmen are soon in hot pursuit of the lovers, and closing in fast . . .
The Heart in Winter is a savagely funny, achingly beautiful tale set in the Wild West.
Advance Praise
A GUARDIAN BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024
A NEW STATESMAN FICTION HIGLIGHT OF 2024
AN OBSERVER FICTION TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024
AN IRISH TIMES FICTION TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024
‘Holy damn, it's good’
DAVID MITCHELL
‘Kevin Barry lights out for the territory and once again comes back with a shining nugget of gold. The Heart in Winter is a glorious and haunted yarn, with all the elements – the doomed lovers, the bounty hunters, the knife-fights and whisky-soaked songs – brought to mysterious life by the heft and polish of the Barry sentence. Marvellous’
JON McGREGOR
‘A great big rollicking ballad of a novel. A love story, and a slice of history, in a language as close to song as literature will ever get’
COLUM McCANN
‘A haunting, hypnotic love story of two damaged souls. Barry's talent is breath-taking — he is a true original and, once again, words obey his call. This is a propulsive read from a writer at the height of his powers’
MARY COSTELLO
‘[The Heart in Winter is] an Irish western, by turns funny and tragic, full of typically outrageous figures and sublime writing’
ALEX PRESTON, Observer
‘Such a great read, so warm and so completely engaging of the reader's feelings’
MIKE McCORMACK
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781805302117 |
| PRICE | £16.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 224 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
John M, Reviewer
I have previously enjoyed ‘Night Boat to Tangier’,so was delighted to get the opportunity to read an early edition of ‘The Heart in Winter’ by Kevin Barry.This time the setting is the old wild west of Montana in 1891.
Initially this is wonderful poetic prose at its best,yet the story seems quite meandering and slightly unclear.There is on first impression a depiction of a wasted life spent stumbling around, with the doomed depression of the drunken doped up exiled Irish despondent.Yet the entire population of the narrative feels based in harsh reality and beyond the compromise of pure cliches.The backdrop is painted so vividly, the landscape for what follows is truly panoramic,and sets the scene magnificently,regards time and place.
Thus when Tom Rourke and Polly Gillespie first meet up,the story really kicks into gear.The tension of temptation,passion,and trouble afoot is tangible from the start.
There follows an absorbing and at times frantic tale of lovers fleeing through a perilous environment ,pursued by those determined to destroy their dreams of a shared future in a new promised land.
Ben D, Reviewer
The first thing that strikes you is how beautiful the prose is - my God how it sings! Then you're drawn into this Cormac McCarthy style story - the American West, somewhat Gothic in tone, and a love story/runaway adventure between Tom Rourke and Polly Gillespie. There are some wonderful moments here, lines which you want to read twice, such poetry of language. This is highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
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