The Heart in Winter
Kevin Barry
Available as Paperback, Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
24 April 2025
A savagely funny, achingly beautiful tale set in the Wild West, from the Booker-longlisted author of Night Boat to Tangier
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, TLS, SCOTSMAN, THE TIMES AND ECONOMIST
AN i-PAPER AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK TO READ THIS SUMMER
‘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 …
“A great big rollicking ballad of a novel”
Colum Mccann
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“A violent, extravagant adventure set in 1890s Montana … [Barry’s] thrilling best”
the Times
“Holy damn, it’s good”
David Mitchell
“An absolute belter of a book”
Anne Enright
“A glorious book with all the heart and excitement of a classic Western, couched in the mixture of lyrical style and offbeat comedy that has become Barry’s trademark”
daily Telegraph
Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry is the author of four novels and three story collections. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. His novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was an Irish number one bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland.
Kevin Barry adoringly reviewed in the Guardian by Sandra Newman:
“Barry’s books are known for their stylistic brilliance, and The Heart in Winter is no exception. Terse and acrobatic, the novel effortlessly walks the line between goofy and gothic. Almost every sentence is quotable. It’s woven from plain-spoken lyricism (“the last winter days went by like weary brokedown soldiers at the end of a war”) and jokes that are at once subtle and silly (“Tom Rourke salted the eggs unambiguously”)… I doubt that anyone will publish a novel this year that is at once so beautiful, so lovable and so much fun.”
Sandra Newman
Guardian