‘I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise…’
Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two.
In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.
But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…
It is my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan today. Many thanks to Doubleday for sending me a copy of the book and to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for the blog tour invitation.
Heart, Be at Peace is described as a companion to Donal Ryan's 2012 debut, The Spinning Heart, which was voted Irish Book of the Decade. It can also be read independently, which is what I did. I'm sure that those familiar with the first book will find extra resonance in meeting the same characters after ten years but this is a wonderful book regardless.
At under 200 pages, Heart, Be at Peace is a novel which delights in its brevity. Each chapter is narrated by a different character – 21 in all – but the structure isn't linear. Instead, each vignette gradually moves the story on; it may not be immediately obvious how a particular episode links to the plot as a whole but a later chapter, told from a different perspective, allows the puzzle to fall into place. The characters' voices are empathetically distinct and it's through the brief insights we are given into their lives, that we experience their joy and hope as well as the brutal disappointments and abject dread which eventually leads to the inevitability of violence.
Donal Ryan's writing reminds me a little of Kent Haruf. He understands how the intimacy of a small canvas – in this case, a village in County Tipperary – conveys a universal tale of love and fear, resentment and hope. However, it is also a novel in which the sense of place is paramount and Donal Ryan embodies the fierce family loyalty of the Irish, even amidst simmering resentments, as well as their quick-witted, cutting sense of humour superbly. Set ten years after the crippling economic crash, while many of the characters have rebuilt their lives, the future still doesn't look rosy – particularly for the young people in the village. A local drug gang is gradually infecting the community and almost every character is affected in some way by its insidious influence.
As the storyline progresses, the tragedies of the past and present are juxtaposed against the lighter scenes but with such a dark scourge looming over the community, the festering sense of foreboding engendered is prevalent. Although black humour can be found throughout, particularly in the sharply observed dialogue, the tension which escalates as the desire to protect collides with trauma and anger is agonising, and the conclusion is terribly moving. Heart, Be at Peace is a lyrical, compassionate, devastatingly mesmerising novel and one I very highly recommend.
Heart, Be at Peace is published by Doubleday, purchasing links can be found here.
Follow the blog tour, details are below.
Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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