The Heart's Invisible Furies cover art

The Heart's Invisible Furies

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Heart's Invisible Furies

By: John Boyne
Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery, or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and, over his three score years and 10, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.

©2017 John Boyne (P)2017 Penguin Audio Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Feel-Good Funny Heartfelt Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Witty Adoption

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Echo Chamber cover art
The Incredible Winston Browne cover art
Morning Glory cover art
The Covenant of Water cover art
Where the Lost Wander cover art
This Tender Land cover art
The Things We Cannot Say cover art
Noughts and Crosses cover art
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek cover art

The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.
Explore the list
All stars
Most relevant  
This is my all time favourite audio book! I love the story, narration, storytelling over a life time is so moving . I love hearing about Dublin and actually did a visit to the country and found all the local pubs and landmarks in the book as it had such an impact on me. Truly remarkable book.

Amazing, over a life time story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I can't urge you to listen to this book enough. It's beautifully written and read, funny, sad, intelligent.....I can't praise it enough.

Simply one of the best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What an amazing book... the words flow and the web of characters become embedded as the description of each strikes a chord within as the reader recalls similar traits in people we have known. The subtlety and nuances in the clever humour and the authors grasp of people's ignorance or fear or bigotry and a powerful understanding of the undercurrents a psyche of a culture shaped and steeped in the domination of catholic priests and all their hypocrisy and cruelty all of which was sustained and constructed on guilt are all woven into the story.
It's a powerful work that makes you reflect on the whole purpose of life and the need to feel and give love and the sentiments run parallel to the story as it subconsciously makes you reflect as each chapter embraces a new phase on the journey.
The book and the story and the incisiveness of each characters depiction quietly tug at the readers emotions and deeply touches your soul sufficiently raw in places to move to tears....
An amazing gift and cleverly done.

A rare gift of a book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

If you could sum up The Heart's Invisible Furies in three words, what would they be?

The complexities of 'goodies' and 'baddies'

What does Stephen Hogan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Stephen Hogan's narration is just perfect - so composed and thoughtful

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Absolutely

Any additional comments?

For the very first time - I have listened to this book twice and would happily listen to it again. Such a beautiful story.

Achingly Beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The first part was superb- beautifully written, with such a flawed character at its heart that made it more ‘human’ than most. Funny and tragic in equal measure.
I felt that it lost its edge a wee bit in Part Two, and became a bit cliched and predictable. I still enjoyed it very much, particularly as it was brilliantly narrated, and I would certainly recommend it.

Unlikely but lovely story, very nicely written

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Funny yet deeply moving story with a fantastic performance, wonderful dialogue a truly engrossing listen!

Immense all round experience

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Masterful, moving, hilarious, wry. This book of loves & lives, lost & found will stay with me forever. Deeply moving.

One of the most powerful books I've ever read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narration of this book is the best of any audiobook I've listened to, it is absolutely superb.

The book is clearly written from the experiences of a gay man growing up in Ireland. I felt it at times lost realism by introducing one dimensional characters ,usually for comedic purposes and by the frequency of coincidence which often bordered on the absurd.

It made it difficult to take the serious bits of the book seriously, but this couldn't be described as a comedy. I also felt that it took 2/3 of the book to develop a trajectory which was then only briefly explored and the final 1/4 felt like tying up loose ends.

Before I bought this I was a little daunted by reviews which said I'd cry multiple times. I didn't, I enjoyed the story, I would definitely recommend the book, but this didn't live up to my expectations reading the other reviews which described it as phenomenal.

Better than the blurb suggests

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great book but Really hard to listen to this out and about as the audio volume is very low. Very frustrating.

Great read but low audio

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Oh! What a book! I loved loved loved it. Compelling and so involving and interesting, you won’t be able to stop listening to it. The narrator is wonderful. I can’t urge you enough to download this epic. Follows a whole life time sage of the main character, who you feel for and love (you will want to be his friend) even though he often is not honest, you will also engage with all the supporting characters. Every character deep and full. Very funny and touching, interwoven without being silly. Definitely one of my favourite ever books.

Absolutely wonderful saga

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews