John Boyne: I can remember one particular day coming home from school and a news report said Aids was like the plague and was going to kill everybody.

As you can see, I loved this novel and it seems the year started very well. I hope it will continue in the same manner. there had been a dance the night before in Skull and they’d come home mouldy with the drink, sleeping only a few hours before being roused by their father for Mass. I was angry with how Cyril and others were treated and parts of the story were very difficult to read. From the beginning of Cyril’s life, it seemed as though he had to live as an outsider and wasn’t accepted.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies

The belief that I would spend the rest of my time on earth lying to people weighed heavily on me and at such times I gave serious consideration to taking my own life. For anyone who has grown up in Ireland, particularly anyone who has had the benefit of seeing the progress made over many decades, The Heart’s Invisible Furies is an essential read. For anyone still hurt by the years of oppression and cruelty inflicted on them in Ireland, this beautiful story could even provide a space to heal. Immediately after the successful repeal of the 8th amendment, it feels like the perfect time to reread it, safe in the knowledge that the outcome of Ireland’s last two referenda will ensure that no gay person or woman in this country will ever again have to endure stories like those endured by Boyne’s characters. The novel is a memorial to those who did.

And particularly in his depiction of Maud Avery, a writer who is never likely to be praised like her male counterparts. Indeed, this is as much a feminist book as it is a gay one. I loved her character and she was exactly the kind of woman I always want to find in a book. She was strong and stood by her opinion and even though life handed her some tough cards she never even thought about giving up. Catherine made the best of her life and I loved to see her so happy at the end of the book! Plus, I lived and breathed for those short moments when Cyril’s and her path crossed. They were always very polite and honest with each other and I think she was more of a mother to him than Maude ever was, even when they both had no clue that they were actually mother and son. <3 And yet, despite all the complaints I’ve lodged, I can’t deny that most of the read was engaging and entertaining, even if not in the way I expected or hoped for. I had a better time than with my last Boyne novel- A Ladder to the Sky. All in all, a mixed experience, though the fact that I seem to be in the minority with my complaints means I’d still readily recommend this book to anyone looking for a humorous, dramatic account of an important social issue.Because, as much as I love descriptions and metaphors and whatnot, there is nothing I love more than just a damn good story. Which I think this book is. Growing up gay in Ireland was a terrible trial for Boyne. He spoke of the struggle through his teens and 20s while publicising his last novel, The History of Loneliness, which looked at the issue of clerical abuse through the life of a ‘good’ priest. I’ll start on a positive: I think Boyne does a great job of conveying how oppressively unfair the social, political, and Catholic response to homosexuality and AIDS was in Ireland (and beyond, to some extent) until very recently. Politicians outed as homosexual would lose their careers. Men who confessed to doctors their shame and unhappiness over their sexual preferences were given cruel and ineffective “treatments.” Children were convinced by authority figures from a young age that the roads to Hell are many and being a homosexual is one of the most certain paths. Being gay in this place, in this time, led to arrest, loss of respect and even recognition from friends and family, direct verbal and physical violence from utter strangers, and more. Cyril’s introductions to sexuality are secretive after-hours public encounters that leave him feeling guilty and far from love. The Heart’s Invisible Furies gave me a good sense of the difficulties faced on every side, and the political/religious atmosphere of the country in these years that led to such intolerant reactions. How do you anchor yourself in that situation? Who or what do you latch on to? For Cyril, it is Julian Woodbead, a childhood friend who seems to have everything Cyril doesn't - confidence, glamour, the freedom to be himself. Cyril loves him with a passion and intensity that isn't reciprocated. This friendship snakes its way through Cyril's life, at times leaving him sad, angry, frustrated and jealous. Cyril's birth, in a dingy flat on Dublin's Chatham Street, is married by extreme violence and prejudice. It wasn't aimed at his mother, but at her flatmate, a young man she met on the bus to Dublin. It is heartbreaking.