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The Spinning Heart

The award-winning bestseller, the ‘Irish Book of the Decade’

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The Spinning Heart

Written by: Donal Ryan
Narrated by: Ciaran O'Brien, Toni O'Rourke, Killian Coyle, Eva Bartley, Gerry Howard, Donal Ryan, Anne Marie Ryan, Roy McMillan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013

Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013

Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012

In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.

'Funny, moving and beautifully written' EDNA O'BRIEN

'Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Donal Ryan is the real deal ... a brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

'I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding' JOHN BOYNE

'It's furious, it's moving, it's darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut' NEW YORK TIMES

© Donal Ryan 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

 Coming of Age Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural

Critic Reviews

There’s a powerful sense of place and shared history binding Ryan’s many voices, their inner and outer selves, distilling a linguistic richness comparable to Under Milk Wood. . . . the testimony of his characters rings rich and true – funny and poignant and banal and extraordinary – and we can’t help but listen.
[A] beguiling debut. … This may be the work of a debut novelist, but it is one who reads plenty and knows his business. … His salty, damaged characters give voice to the anger and heartache of a town snared by Ireland’s collapse. For this, we are in his debt.
Donal Ryan’s prism of life and lives is compellingly humane. … This is an exciting, relevant and believable contemporary novel about the lost and the wounded that listens to the present without discarding either the sins of the fathers or the literary legacy of the past.
Funny, moving and beautifully written
Donal Ryan is the real deal … A brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape
Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it
A formidable debut, with snatches of the savage comedy of Patrick McCabe and a wistful cadence all its own.
Powerful and affecting . . . [a] superb, unforgettable and topical debut.
Funny, moving, technically inventive … Structurally the novel gestures to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, while Ryan’s sensitive observations on Irish life seem responsive to the work of his compatriot Patrick McCabe. That Ryan does not look out of place in such literary company is a measure of his achievement.
I was hugely impressed by The Spinning Heart. There will be many novels which explore the effect of the crash on the people of Ireland but I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding.
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