The Spinning Heart

Donal Ryan captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland in this dark, witty and technically daring portrait of small-town life.

In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between the 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, and 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.

"Irish author Ryan's debut takes readers to the “heart” of hardscrabble life in Ireland in the era after the economic boom and bust of 2008. The novel received Book of the Year honours at the Irish Book Awards. Reminiscent of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, this book gives readers a story — or rather stories — told from multiple perspectives, each chapter using a different voice... Disturbing and unnerving but ultimately beautiful."   -  Kirkus Reviews

Donal Ryan is a writer and lecturer from County Tipperary. His novel 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 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and was voted ‘Irish Book of the Decade’. From a Low and Quiet Sea was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018.