-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Discuss | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A Novel
by Donal Ryan
Book Reviewed by:Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.
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.
Donal Ryan's brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in fiction.
The novel (though "novella" might be the more appropriate term for a book of just 160 pages) is a chorus of twenty-one first-person narratives, including Bobby's. Ryan features representatives from every sector of the community: an old woman, a little girl, a Russian immigrant, a single mother, a police officer, a schizophrenic man, and so on. The book triumphs at giving each character a distinctive voice, varying by level of diction, thickness of Irish dialect, staid or gossipy tone, and each person's particular preoccupations. The novel's context may not be immediately apparent, but it starts to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle...continued
Full Review
(835 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
Although the 2008 financial crisis that provides the background to Donal Ryan's The Spinning Heart had worldwide repercussions, the effects were felt particularly heavily in Ireland. The crash was preceded by a time of great prosperity in the country, such that the booming economy was given the nickname of the "Celtic Tiger," comparing it to some of the East Asian economies that took off in the late 1980s.
Foreign investment, increased partnership between employers and unions, industrial subsidies, more women joining the workforce, a low corporate tax rate, and membership in the European Union were all factors that led to an average 9.4% annual expansion in the economy between 1995 and 2000. Over the decade between the mid-nineties and ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked The Spinning Heart, try these:
The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac
by Louise Kennedy
Published 2024
Brilliant, dark stories of women's lives by "a very major talent" (Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times)
by Ruth Gilligan
Published 2021
Set in the gothic wilds of Ireland, The Butchers' Blessing is a haunting and unforgettable thriller brimming with secrecy, tradition, and superstition.
Declan Hughes
Ryan's feat is considerable...Given a novel as brilliantly realized as The Spinning Heart, I see no reason to look anywhere but the present. For Donal Ryan, the future is now.
.gif)