Kevin Barry is certainly an evocative writer, but after reading my second book by him, I’m still not sure I like him. The Heart in Winter combines romance with brutality and some readers deserve a warning about foul language.
In 1891 Butte, Montana, the mines are booming, and the town is full of drunks and whores. Tom Rourke, a boyish Irish immigrant, spends his days helping a photographer or writing letters for illiterate miners and his nights drinking and doping. One day, mine captain Long Anthony Harrington comes in for a wedding photo of himself and his brand new wife, Polly. Their romance has been an exchange of letters, and Tom can tell that the wife dislikes her new husband. Tom is smitten.
Three weeks later, they put into action Tom’s poor excuse for a plan. While Polly’s husband is at work on the night shift, Tom will burn down the rooming house where he lives so that in the confusion he can steal the landlady’s money, and then they will steal a horse and escape to San Francisco. It’s turned toward winter, the perfect time to be traveling in the mountains. (I’m being ironic here.)
Of course, their plan fools no one, and the outraged Harrington hires three Cornishmen to track down the fugitives with the instructions to bring back Polly and do whatever they want to Tom. For their part, after a first burst of speed, Tom and Polly are honeymooning in someone’s cabin.
Of course, there’s a feeling of doom throughout the novel, and things don’t go very well for the couple. The novel is adventurous, with quirky characters, and gritty.
Another caveat, though. Barry seems to know nothing about what it would be like to travel in these mountains in winter. His inexperienced travelers would probably be dead in days.
I read this for my Walter Scott prize project.
What? Me Read? 