The Heart in Winter
THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
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- € 7,99
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THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR
THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
PICKED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, INDEPENDENT, IRISH INDEPENDENT, IRISH EXAMINER, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, SCOTSMAN, THE TIMES AND ECONOMIST
AN i-PAPER AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK TO READ THIS SUMMER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE
'An absolute belter of a book' ANNE ENRIGHT
He was ready to die for love. He just needed to find the right girl.
October, 1891. Tom Rourke is a poet struggling to make a life amongst the Irish migrant workers in Butte, Montana. He is a doper and a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. His life is heading nowhere fast. That is until he meets Polly Gillespie, the new bride of a devout mine captain, and a thunderbolt love affair takes spark.
Tom and Polly strike out west on a stolen horse. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunsmen are in hot pursuit of the lovers, and closing in fast . . .
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This rip-roaring western from Barry (Night Boat to Tangier) chronicles the misadventures of an opium-smoking Irishman. The story begins in 1891 Butte, Mont., where reckless Tom Rourke senses "the approach of a dangerous fate." He fancies himself a poet and balladeer, and to pay for his booze and dope, he writes letters to prospective brides on behalf of illiterate men. He also spends a lot of time admiring himself in saloon mirrors ("He wore the felt slouch hat at a wistful angle and the reefer jacket of mossgreen tweed and a black canvas shirt and in his eyes dimly gleaming the lyric poetry of an early grave and he was satisfied with the inspection"). After he meets Polly Gallagher, a mail-order bride from Chicago, the two trade lines of poetry and begin a passionate and chaotic affair. They burn down a boardinghouse, rob the safe, steal a horse, and head west across Montana to Idaho, with a posse in pursuit and tragedy in tow. The action is rendered in crisp and gritty prose, and the sensual descriptions of Tom and Polly's lovemaking are gloriously over-the-top. The pleasure never lets up in Barry's masterful novel.
