The Heart in Winter

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One of the year’s most anticipated books (The Guardian, The New Statesmen, The Irish Times, The Journal, The Observer)—A savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana from award-winning writer Kevin Barry.

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.NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, THE NEW STATESMAN, THE IRISH TIMES, THE JOURNAL, AND THE OBSERVER

“An Irish western, by turns funny and tragic, full of typically outrageous figures and sublime writing.” —The Guardian

“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

“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 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

“[B]y turns funny and tragic, full of typically outrageous figures and sublime writing.” —The ObserverKEVIN BARRY is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone, and City of Bohane as well as three story collections including That Old Country Music. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and lives in County Sligo, Ireland.US

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