Description

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR
THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
PICKED AS A BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR BY THE GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES AND ECONOMIST

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 . . .

Publisher Review

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 Praise for Kevin Barry: Barry is a clairvoyant narrator of the male psyche and a consistent lyrical visionary * * Guardian * * One of the most abundantly talented novelists writing today * * Daily Telegraph * * If prose were gold and diamonds there’d be thousands of hell-bent prospectors heading for the Black Hills of Kevin Barry’s glistening, sparkling novel — SEBASTIAN BARRY Barry is such a deft and generous writer * * New York Times * * Barry writes with real exuberance * * Sunday Times * *