The Heart’s Invisible Furies, Boyne’s tiende roman voor volwassenen, vertelt ook een verhaal dat nooit gebeurd zou kunnen zijn, daarvoor hangt het te veel van toevalligheden aan elkaar. Toch blijf je bereid je ongeloof op te schorten, omdat je wilt weten hoe het verder gaat. Hoe de hoofdpersoon zich nu weer gaat redden uit de moeilijke situatie waarin hij, meestal door zijn eigen domme gedrag of dat van iemand anders, is terechtgekomen. En of hij zijn echte moeder ooit gaat vinden.
Dat Boyne de puzzelstukjes veel te mooi in elkaar laat vallen, vergeef je hem. Hij trakteert ons op zoveel spannende scènes, op grappige dialogen met mooie Iers-Engelse uitdrukkingen erin, en zelfs op ontroering. Bovendien is The Heart’s Invisible Furies, net als The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, duidelijk een bedacht verhaal, bedoeld om de wel waargebeurde geschiedenis te illustreren. Dat is Boyne dit keer heel goed gelukt.

John Boyne delivers an epic full of verve, humour and heart...This blending of fact and fiction recalls William Boyd’s masterly Any Human Heart, which was such a convincing fictionalised biography that it came with its own set of footnotes....At every stage, Boyne seems to be saying that the individual is more powerful than the institutional. And at its core, The Heart’s Invisible Furies aspires to be not just the tale of Cyril Avery, a man buffeted by coincidence and circumstance, but the story of Ireland itself.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies” is a big, sweeping novel, the epic story of one man’s life. It takes on social issues and pivotal moments in Irish history as it follows the life of one Cyril Avery, a Pip-like orphan raised by indifferent adoptive parents and forced to make his own way in a very difficult world.

Cyril, who narrates the book, is wry, observant and funny, and it is his voice that gets us through what are sometimes horrific events. ...Despite these missteps, the book never really flags, and Cyril’s intelligent, witty voice takes us all the way through to the end of his life. “The Heart’s Invisible Furies” is a brilliant, moving history of an Irishman, and of modern Ireland itself.

Catherine’s journey to Dublin is the beginning of a picaresque, lolloping odyssey for the individual characters and for the nation that confines them. ...Boyne’s sombre 2014 novel A History of Loneliness anatomised such corruption and abuse, and he returns to track these seismic changes in Irish society with a broader, bawdier and more comedic sweep of narrative in The Heart’s Invisible Furies....The book blazes with anger as it commemorates lives wrecked by social contempt and self‑loathing....The narrative energy flags somewhat as Cyril’s story approaches the present day. Boyne’s fictional portrait of postwar Ireland and its people is nightmarish but utterly compelling

The book deals with some serious subject matter – gay-bashing, political corruption, AIDS – as well as the brutal sadness of being an other in a society that does not tolerate or even acknowledge others. But too often, Boyne goes for laughs to the detriment of the narrative. Some of the passages – the dialogue in particular – are indeed funny, but by sacrificing authenticity for a cheap laugh, he does a disservice to his story...My other beef with this book, which I tried so desperately to like, is the virtual disappearance of Kitty. While she does pop up at points in the book, it is never as a fully realized character....The novel's most successful moments come when Boyne scraps the comedy shtick and paints a more realistic picture of tender connections and difficult circumstances. This could have been a smart, raging satire of Ireland, as that tremendous opening sentence promised