The Heart in Winter

Kevin Barry. Kevin Barry! Wherefore art thou Kevin Barry? If you were not Kevin Barry – if you were of a name more memorable, more singular – perhaps I and the rest of the reading world would not so easily look past you. If your name had a barb on its hook, maybe it would not so easily slide out of the mind. If your name was not beige; if it had the color and sound and shape of your writing, perhaps your books would populate a hundred thousand more shelves. Why I'm just now reading Kevin Barry, or why his name is not surrounded by grander accolades, I can't really say. I can only say it's not on account of any defect in his writing, because there isn't any.

The Heart in Winter is Kevin Barry's novel featuring a turn of the nineteenth century Butte, Montana as its central setting and its Irish immigrants as the central cast. Most of the Irish populate Butte as laborers for the mining boom, but Tom Rourke isn't much for physical work and scrapes by as a man of letters and songs (and opium, too). Before long, Tom meets Polly, and the two ignite a love affair that is as ill-advised as it is inevitable.

The novel follows the journey of our fated lovers, with Barry as the orchestrator of words and sentences and chapters that never miss a note. Like a jazz ensemble, The Heart in Winter takes exciting small turns, twisting tempo and tone but never losing the beating heart of the story. The prose is masterful, always razor sharp while remaining loose, fluid, and elastic.

“She lay in the darkness and sermonized against herself. If you are of the kind that throws yourself to the fates of the earth then you better watch out. If you are of the kind that takes notions in a life then you just got to accept all of that life's capricious outcomes. If you are of the kind that throws all cares to the wind don't go complainin when suddenly you are off your goddamn feet and spinnin out forever in the crazy fucking wind.”

Goodbye now, if you need me, I'll be in Kevin Barry's backlist to find who else he has beautifully thrown to the fates of the world, to life's capricious outcomes, and I look forward to basking in their tales of spinning forever in the wind.

Raw and unflinchingly bleak. This is my first Kevin Barry book and it took me a while to get used to his style of writing. After a couple of chapters in, at one point I even considered quitting it. But I'm glad I stuck around for the sake of the story and the fate of its characters.

It's a tragic tale of love and death. Filled with a narration that feels surreal and fascinating.

I didn't like how this book ended but I'd surely recommend it to people who are looking for an old time short and tragic love story.

Four stars, on account of the beautiful language and the decency of keeping an otherwise unremarkable story short.

Now go read “Blood Meridian”, which sits on another level, entirely.