Who could have predicted that a novel set in 1891 Butte, Mont., could say something fresh that previous westerns haven't already said? Fans of the Irish writer Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier; Dark Lies the Island), that's who. This endlessly inventive author is just the guy to upend the American western, which he does brilliantly in The Heart in Winter. Tom Rourke, an Irishman "in suave array and manic tatters," earns money by writing proposals of marriage on behalf of illiterate men, but not enough to cover debts from dope and drink. Life's not so great until he meets Polly, a Chicago woman unhappily married to Anthony Harrington, an Irish miner boss who self-flagellates with a thick rope whenever he prays.
Tom and Polly start an affair, burn down Tom's boardinghouse, steal almost $600 and a horse, and head for San Francisco, where, Tom hopes, "no one will find us." Harrington responds by hiring a seven-foot-tall Cornish gunman and two accomplices to bring Polly back. That may sound like a garden-variety Wild West tale, but Barry distinguishes it with philosophical heft, erudite discussions of religion and free will, and much else. And no one can top the grungy poetry of Barry's writing, with characters like the stranger in priest's collar who's "sleeping ravenously in a covered wagon" and calls himself the "voice of Zion in an epoch of whores and liars." There's nothing cookie-cutter about lines like those in this magnificent work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer