The Spinning Heart: A Novel Author: Donal Ryan | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EMX82SI | Format: EPUB
The Spinning Heart: A Novel Description
In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.
The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.
Donal Ryan's brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in fiction.
- File Size: 1523 KB
- Print Length: 164 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: B00FALVSU0
- Publisher: Steerforth (February 25, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EMX82SI
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,583 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #16
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > British & Irish
- #16
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > British & Irish
"My father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down."
This novel was the most surprising one to be chosen for this year's Booker Prize longlist, as it was rejected by 47 publishers before Doubleday Ireland decided to accept it. It is set in a rural Irish town during the financial crisis of the last decade, after the local building firm has gone under. The book is divided into short chapters, each narrated by a person in the book that is linked to all of the others. The main character is Bobby Mahon, a handsome young married man who is embittered by the recent loss of his job at the building firm and by the knowledge that his boss, Pokey Burke, has cheated him and his work mates out of their pensions. He also has a difficult relationship with his father, a widowed old drunkard who wasted away the family's savings and seems to hang on to life to spite his son, who will inherit the cottage once his father dies. Bobby's loathing for his father is strong enough that he often thinks about killing him, to gain the property and to be rid of his presence forever.
Through the accounts of the other characters the main theme of the novel comes into focus, similar to a tapestry created by multiple weavers, and the reader learns how the country's economic collapse has ruined the lives and dreams of those who live there. Multiple story lines surround the tragic central one, which ends with a surprising twist.
I found The Spinning Heart to be far less satisfying than most other readers. The characters in this novel are almost all deeply unhappy, bitter, and speak ill about those who are closest to them.
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