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The Heart in Winter
- Narrated by: Kevin Barry
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
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The Heart in Winter
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Summary
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
What if we ride out tonight?
What if we ride out and never once look back?
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 . . .
Critic reviews
'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)
What listeners say about The Heart in Winter
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- edward
- 12-06-24
another top shelf Barry
best thing since Bohane. all the blood, love and poetry you'd want. but this time out west.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- peter d o brien
- 04-07-24
You can take the man out of Ireland….
Kevin Barry writes with a poets heart, an Irish poets heart. He seems to know the very soul of the Paddy at home and away from it, in the heart of the American wilds which he describes viscerally. It’s a pleasure to listen to the author himself reading.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 09-06-24
Another gem
This man does not miss. Beautiful, haunting, evocative of a world at once familiar and utterly alien.
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- stan
- 14-07-24
A must listen/ read experience.
Mr Barry will drag you ( effin drag you) into a world not so long past and not so far away, a love story a story of hope . no plot giveaway s from me but ....Wonderful yarn of
the old very wild west. The authors narration is outstanding.
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- Cathy Power
- 14-07-24
Lovely poetic turn of phrase
A road story in sweet Irish words. It is a long poem. The voice is magic.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 06-08-24
Wonderful
As usual with Kevin Barry, the delivery and the language and the story is fantastic.
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- Leslie Williams
- 20-09-24
a tour de force
brilliantly read by the author, a vibrant tragi-comic western love story. the language sings throughout
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- Tricia Parker
- 31-10-24
Wonderful language to draw you into the world of Tom and Polly
The very first chapter was difficult for me but once Tom emerged from his drunken, doped tatters I was hooked. A terrific story with so many twists and turns and the language always seductive. Kevin Barry's reading was superb.
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- Nichola D
- 23-09-24
Barry’s poetic style, the story and his voice reading it.
I love his books, his style is emotionally compelling, Like reading poetry, didn’t want the book to end. Must look for more!
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- Michael Hallihane
- 11-09-24
The black heart of Montana
Perfectly narrated by the author. The brogue, the lilt, the depth of the author's voice brings the characters to life. And what a story. Someone said every story's a love story and every story's a tragedy. But it's not about the end, it's the journey. And Barry brings us on one. Recommend.
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