A savagely funny, achingly beautiful tale set in the Wild West, from the Booker-longlisted author of Night Boat to Tangier

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR
THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
PICKED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, INDEPENDENT, IRISH INDEPENDENT, IRISH EXAMINER, TLS, SCOTSMAN, THE TIMES AND ECONOMIST
AN i-PAPER AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK TO READ THIS SUMMER

'An absolute belter of a book' ANNE ENRIGHT

He was ready to die for love. He just needed to find the right girl.

October, 1891. Tom Rourke is a poet struggling to make a life amongst the Irish migrant workers in Butte, Montana. He is a doper and a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. His life is heading nowhere fast. That is until he meets Polly Gillespie, the new bride of a devout mine captain, and a thunderbolt love affair takes spark.

Tom and Polly strike out west on a stolen horse. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunsmen are in hot pursuit of the lovers, and closing in fast . . .

Details

ISBN13: 9781837260799
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 224
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 22 Jul 2025
Publisher: Canongate Books
Publication City, Country: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 19.8(H)x12.9(L)x1.4(W)163
Weight (gm): 163

Author Biography

Kevin Barry is the author of four novels and three story collections. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. His novel, Night Boat to Tangier,was an Irish number one bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland.

Reviews

'A glorious book with all the heart and excitement of a classic Western, couched in the mixture of lyrical style and offbeat comedy that has become Barry's trademark' Daily Telegraph
'An absolute belter of a book' ANNE ENRIGHT
'A glorious and haunted yarn, with all the elements - the doomed lovers, the bounty hunters, the knife-fights and whisky-soaked songs - brought to mysterious life by the heft and polish of the Barry sentence. Marvellous' JON McGREGOR
'Proof of the author's genius' STUART KELLY, Scotsman
'Holy damn, it's good' DAVID MITCHELL
'[Barry] is constitutionally incapable of delivering a dull sentence' MARTIN DOYLE, Irish Times
'Gripping and touching . . . the best of Kevin Barry's novels' Irish Examiner
'Stunning . . . a brilliantly twisty novel that brings the past to life with such intensity. This is one of 2024's best' Independent
'It takes a sublime artist like Kevin Barry to map the wildest outposts of the human heart. He captures his poet bandit's spirit through language that is consistently original, consistently exhilarating' CLAIRE KILROY
'A rich delight . . . The Heart in Winter sets passion against violence, and considers how the soul survives in extremity' ERICA WAGNER, New Statesman
'[Barry's] magnum opus' Irish Independent
'There are elements of a thriller and a love story here but most memorable is the novel's language which veers between tough wisecracks and tenderness, at its best blending the two' Mail on Sunday
'Barry paints a patchwork quilt picture of early modern America . . . a story of violence and contradictions; opportunity versus risk, love versus revenge, fate versus chance and the natural world versus the spiritual' Irish Independent
'A great big rollicking ballad of a novel. A love story, and a slice of history, in a language as close to song as literature will ever get' COLM McCANN
'Another bloody brilliant little symphony from Kevin Barry' MAX PORTER
'A haunting, hypnotic love story of two damaged souls. Barry's talent is breath-taking - he is a true original and, once again, words obey his call. This is a propulsive read from a writer at the height of his powers' MARY COSTELLO
'If the Coen brothers were to write a novel it would be this. Barry has conjured a magnetic protagonist in Polly' SHEENA PATEL
'Wondrous and bold. I'm in awe of Kevin Barry and endlessly inspired by his work' LISA McINERNEY
'Such a great read, so warm and so completely engaging of the reader's feelings' MIKE McCORMACK
'The Heart in Winter is a moody, careening love song, vicious and yearning, graced with Barry's trademark wit and fierce lyricism' COLIN BARRETT
'[The Heart in Winter is] an Irish western, by turns funny and tragic, full of typically outrageous figures and sublime writing' ALEX PRESTON, Observer