The Heart in Winter

A Novel

De: Kevin Barry

Narrado por: Kevin Barry

A BEST BOOK OF 2024 FROM THE ECONOMIST AND THE MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

"A wedding of Cormac McCarthy with Flann O’Brien; a western but also the most Irish of novels; a tragedy written as farce . . . inspiring joy with every incident, every concept, every sentence."—The Guardian

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana 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 ballad-maker of the town, 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 extremely 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, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.

©2024 Kevin Barry (P)2024 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Exhilarating...What starts as a gritty depiction of one man going nowhere soon becomes a gripping tale of two lovers on the run...Both an Irish-flavored western fraught with danger and brutality and a love story filled with caustic humor and pathos....Barry’s signature touches predominate and render the narrative propulsive and immersive.”—The Washington Post

“A rare thing…This short, tight novel pulls one so swiftly along that it can be read in a summer’s afternoon. And then once more, slowly.”—Wall Street Journal

“Like its Montana setting, Kevin Barry’s novel is brutal and gorgeous... a sense of foreboding is shot through with dark humour.”—The Economist

A more gleeful Cormac McCarthy

My only complaint is that I wish the story was longer. It was one of those books that I kept listening to in every free moment. I finished it in two days and immediately started listening to it again. Kevin Barry does a fantastic job reading his work. His language slips between the poetic and profane with the ease of a drunken, Irish Bard. It reminded me a lot of Cormac McCarthy's earlier work, except with more humor and not nearly as dark.

The wild west seen through Irish eyes

This love story carries a ponderous and wry tone, and I loved it. Kevin Barry's reading of his own book is brilliant and makes it a figurative page-turner. The tone fits the harsh and violent world of Irish immigrants in Butte, Montana in the early 1890s. Mr. Barry weaves evil, humor and two lovers into a tale whose outcome seems inevitable. My only critique is of ellipsis - leaving the reader to deduce what happened in a couple of climactic points that were central to understanding the story.

Solid as always

Kevin Barry is one of my favorite writers of all time. And one of the few authors who can narrate his own work and do it justice. Some laugh out loud moments, and many well crafted sentences, with many adjectives used with shameless abandon. Top shelf stuff for sure.

Beautifully written with delicious descriptions.

A love story that takes place in early Butte Montana. With amazing descriptions of life during that time from many perspectives showcasing people’s resilience despite this hard life. I loved it !!!

Raw and beautiful story in Butte

Beautiful prose and well read by the author. My grandfather lived and worked in the copper mines of Butte and died of ‘black lung disease’ while my father was just 11 years old. I know the area well and Kevin Barry describes it accurately. Great story.

Excellent story. Excellent narration.

Superb in every respect. Compelling story. Perfect narration. I devoured it about as fast as I could and savored every bit.

Montana love story

Montana love story. Late nineteenth century in Butte. Weddings still arranged by post. One young bride with a checkered background married a penitent and then falls in love with an Irish mine worker. They decide to run off to San Francisco. They travel west on a stolen horse. They are overtaken by a band of ruffians. They try to get back together.

Road to nowhere

The language and the narrators accent were fascinating and delightful. The premise of the story had a lot of potential. It felt like the author, maybe fell into a depression halfway through and took his characters down with him. If this was an exercise in Irish fatalism, it succeeded.

Brilliant as usual

Kevin Barry is one of the best writers going. He never disappoints. His prose is shimmering. His low, growl and snipe of a narration is a constant delight. I wish he would go back and narrate his first two short story volumes; they would be quickly snapped up by his many admirers.

So fresh!

So fresh and modern and wild and deep. Terrific performance. Deeply Irish story that shows something true about the human heart.