Late in Kevin Barry’s amazing novel, The Heart in Winter, rumors start to race around Montana and Idaho as people recount what they heard about Tom Rourke and Polly Gillespie’s doomed love. It sounds like a tall tale or sordid scandal or a blues song the way folks tell it. They’re not far wrong. There are elements to Tom and Polly’s story that, if we hadn’t just read them, would be dismissed as tropes from an old Western.

Tom Rourke is a man not long for this world. He trudges the dirty streets of Butte, Montana, looking for drink or drugs and avoiding people he owes money. He makes money for his vices with odd jobs and writing letters for illiterate men and selling song lyrics to bars and brothels. While Tom goes on his drunk, we see brief scenes of Tom plying his trade writing letters back east for men who are hunting for a wife. To be fair, there weren’t that many ways to make money in Butte in 1881 if you didn’t want to be a miner.

We’re given to believe that he’s pretty good at talking women into marriage (possibly because these women can’t see what they’re getting into). One of these women, Polly Gillespie, arrives shortly after Tom’s bender. His letters talked her into marrying Long Antony Harrington, a captain at Anaconda Copper. But when Tom spots her at the photographer’s studio where he earns a bit of money, he falls instantly in love. Or lust. Polly also falls, too, and the two begin a passionate affair. The next thing anyone knows, Tom has hatched a plan for the two to run away to San Francisco.

Reading this book was a peculiar experience for me. Much of the book takes place in the Idaho Territory. (Idaho didn’t become a state until 1890.) I lived in Pocatello (the couple’s first destination) for about fifteen years and Barry references several places I think only Idaho people know of: Driggs, St. Anthony, the Portneuf (formerly Pontneuf) and Snake Rivers, Pocatello itself. It didn’t take much of Barry’s beautiful and idiosyncratic language to bring the Idaho wilderness to life for me. (Thankfully, there are far fewer outlaws in the woods these days.)

Barry’s writing does take some easing into. I had to slow myself down more than once to get the rhythm of Tom’s internal monologue. Once I had a feel for Tom’s turn of phrase, I fell in love with the narrative’s use of language and vibrant vocabulary. The plot is utterly gripping and the characters, like I said above, could’ve walked right out of a song or a dime novel—but in the best possible way. This book is an incredible ride.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Random House Publishing for an early copy of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Both stark and deep, The Heart in Winter balances the rough terrain of Montana/Idaho in late 19th century with the feelings and emotions of a man and woman on the run following theft, arson and murder.

Tom Rourke, an Irish ne'er-do-well with a penchant for dope and a gift for writing letters to prospective brides, and the recently married but unhappy Polly are bound for California after tragic events force them to escape the area. Along the way, circumstances offer them several brief reprieves before they face the consequences of their actions.

Author Kevin Barry's use of strong imagery and beautiful language gives readers a chance to simply read aloud to capture the strength of the text.

A loping plot of lovers on the run, nominally a western, but really a new and novel opportunity for Kevin Barry to explore his favorite themes of disreputable love, scoundrels, and fragments of warmth in an often pitiless world.

What he does best, he does well here; beautiful sentences set to hypnotic cadences, wry humor, and unblinking brutality. The main characters are well drawn and compelling, but it's in the supporting characters that float in and out of the narrative that the real pleasures are found. Each one has their own internal narrative, and Barry wrings humanity out of even the most despicable villains.

If the plot is slight, and the minor-key finale a bit perfunctory, that's not enough to deprive the book of its fifth star. A terrific read from one of the best writers working.

Imagine a beautifully written story about forbidden love, escaped love on the run, the harsh winter landscape of Montana in 1891, a manhunt driven by revenge from a wronged husband, cold, warm, touching, and brutal. The poetically gifted Kevin Barry pens such a literary masterpiece in The Heart in Winter.

In a language that is expressive and poignant, we are drawn to the emotions and plights of the two main characters, Polly Gillespie and Tom Rourke. Polly is a mail-order bride-of-sorts to Anthony Harrington, owner of a copper mine, who habitually self-flagellates in his religious fidelity. Unsurprisingly, Polly finds a more significant attraction to the young Tom Rourke, a loveable degenerate fond of drink, drugs, suicidal tendencies, a naïve opportunist, a photographer and a ballad maker.

Polly and Tom establish an immediate connection, and considering their respective lives, decide to steal a horse and money and escape unprepared into the wild winter, where they must now stay ahead of a posse led by the ruthless Jago Marrak. Death joins the chase, and remarkable incidents tease us that perhaps they have luck on their side, or is it just a matter of time? Polly and Tom's infatuation for each other keeps them in their own bubble, and you can’t help but hope they are given a chance to be together and explore love across a lifetime.

Kevin Barry is incredible at weaving desolation and warmth, passion and brutality, fear and love, compelling characters, and a landscape that escapes the page. His poetic writing flows with a modulated pace that holds the reader’s attention and imagination as the story unfolds.

I want to thank Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing a free ARC in return for an honest review. The publication date is 9 July 2024, and I highly recommend getting a copy and settling for an exceptional literary read.

By now it’s no longer surprising to KB completists (such as myself) to find his novels and stories leaping off the page at you. In his frequently comma-less and always beautiful prose the story gets told, characters are fleshed-out and have a pulse, and not a page goes by without delight. The Heart in Winter expands upon Barry's range (it's set in the American West in 1891, rather than the author's native Ireland), but he's lost not a step in conveying the kind of pathos, despair, love and doom, that have haunted all of his work. Tom and Polly are genuinely star-crossed lovers and as they seek to escape from a stifling life in Butte, Montana, violence and tragedy haunt their every move. The new novel is compulsively readable and a worthy addition to the great Irish writer's oeuvre. Highly recommend. (Thanks to NetGalley for advance copy.)

Thank you Net Galley and Random House for the opportunity to read. MY GOD! What an amazing book. Montana 1890. When poet, drunk, and doper, Tom Rourke, sets eyes on Polly Gillespie, the mail order bride with a dubious past to the Butte mine boss, sparks fly. Soon the two are on the run on a stolen horse. This is all the good stuff of Lonesome Dove and Cold Mountain. It is dark and yet humorous, tragic, and uplifting. Barry’s voice is unique and compelling; his ability to capture characters, place, and emotion, heartbreakingly real. haven’t read Barry before but I sure as hell will now.!

This is the first book I’ve read by Kevin Barry but it definitely won’t be my last! I found this story of two young lovers on the run in 1890’s Montana to have the grit of a Cormac McCarthy novel, and the subtle cross between adventure and peril found in Cold Mountain. Even so, it was tender enough at its end to need a box of tissues handy! I expect this stunning novel to stay with me for a long time.

Kevin Barry’s prose is so enchanting that it takes my breath away. Like a master magician, he summons words from thin air and presents them to his readers with a flourish. He could write a city phone book, and it would sing! I went into this, his latest novel, prepared to be bowled over. He did not disappoint.

For the first time, this much-awarded Irish writer sets his novel in America, specifically, the city of Butte, Montana, in 1891. Butte is filled with hard-living Irish immigrant workers, one of whom is Tom Rourke, a ballad writer and sometime-photographer. He has the heart of a poet, and yet there’s a darkness that lives within him, which manifests in drinking, doping, and even suicide ideation.

Then he meets Polly Gillespie, who is a seasoned mail-order bride of sorts to the old owner of the copper mine, Long Anthony Harrington, who ties up his own wrists and whips himself into a frenzy over his love of Jesus. Not exactly a match made in heaven. When Tom and Polly exchange a look, the earth moves. They steal a horse and escape to the badland.

Barry writes, “It was to a world between worlds they were drawn. They were headed into this unthinkable place without a map to it nor the sense to be afraid even, and they were in this regard heroically. Death hovered close to the lovers always. It was around the like a charge o the air. It was like a blue gunpower waft. It was like electricity. They had an aspect of cool affront to life and so it was deathwards they were drawn.”

Heart in Winter weaves together – seamlessly, like magic – a lyrical tale of a bad-ass doper and his far-from-innocent lover, a Western adventure tale of gun-for-hire “Jacks” seeking frontier justice on behalf of Harrington, and a treatise about the choices we make and how these choices get rearranged as Tom and Polly lean into their inevitable fate. The patois of the badlands is channeled seamlessly through Barry’s writing as his characters leap from the page.

I owe a world of thanks to Doubleday Publishers and NetGalley, who provided me with early access to one of my favorite contemporary writers in exchange for an honest review. I’d give this six stars if I could!

Thank you to NetGalley and to Doubleday Books for the ARC of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, what a cover! Minimalist and eye-catching - it wasn't until after I read the synopsis that I recognized Barry for Night Boat to Tangier which I read a few years back.

It took me about 10-15 minutes of reading to catch on to Barry's prose in The Heart in Winter - something I also remember having to with Night Boat to Tangier - his writing style is very immersive to the topic and it drops you right into a location where the reader has to quickly right themselves to understand the layered meaning of the story. Once into the second chapter focused from Polly's perspective everything felt aligned prose wise. If anyone briefly struggles, stick with it!

Tom Rourke, one of our main characters, writes letters for the men of Butte to help them bring women to the west to marry. One of the women Tom writes to is Polly Gillespie, and within 48hours of her arriving to Butte and marrying the mining captain Long Anthony Harrington, she and Tom begin an emotional and physical affair. Within a few weeks they have made a slapdash plan to steal money and a horse while creating a town-wide distraction to sneak away to the west. When Harrington realizes what has happened, he hires a gang of men to bring Polly back to him. This is where the action begins and we ride along with perspectives from Tom, Polly, and the other players to the end.

Barry's books are concise but every single word and sentence lends to the story. Because of this he has a depth of character building and plot development that flows quickly, but it never feels forced or accidental. We know from the first five pages what a mess Tom Rourke is - suicidal, heavy drinker, opium user, pays for sex, mostly broke, a bit of an insomniac, poet/writer of love letters, etc. In the town he is an accepted scamp - it is recognized he is incapable of being a miner and that he doesn't pay his debts and he avoids the other Irishmen of the town and he is more or less nonviolent. Polly is not just a woman looking for a husband, she's looking to escape her past and recognizing that a woman of 32 has few options in the world - pretending to be younger and virginal for the captain is a simple escape. Together Tom and Polly are a lovely disaster trying their best to make it in the wild west - even knowing their flaws, it's still so easy to root for them.

The backdrop of the west in this time period is well displayed and thought out. The array of cultures and the efforts toward national expansion in the effort to achieve manifest destiny and the American dream highlight the true struggle of finding a new home and being treated equally as fellow townsfolk/fortune seekers/survivors.

The story also contains some of the pivotal elements of westerns - the wilderness, the settlers, outlaws, bounty hunters, and questions or morality and justice - all told from a more nuanced perspective. It is a fine addition to the genre.