Summary

The title is taken from a remark Hannah Arendt made about the poet, W.H. Auden, that life had manifested the heart's invisible furies on his face. The novel reveals the invisible furies left on the heart, mind, and body of the homosexual protagonist, Cyril Avery, and the sociopolitical and sociocultural changes sweeping his homeland, Ireland, from 1945 to 2015. As Ireland becomes more socially progressive, Cyril learns there are many ways to define a fulfilling life with a loving family.

Book One of the novel spans from 1945 to 1973. The novel's protagonist, Cyril Avery, whose first person narrative contains hindsight because he is nearing the end of his life, tells the story of his birth. In “Chapter 1: 1945: The Cuckoo in the Nest,” his birth mother, Catherine Goggin, whom Cyril knows as Mrs. Goggin for most of his life, is exiled from her rural Irish village...