Cyril Avery isn’t a real Avery—at least, that’s what his father keeps telling him. And he’ll never become a real one. But then who is he? Cyril’s mother, when he was still a little boy, was expelled from her native Irish village—when it became known that she was expecting a child. Cyril was adopted by a wealthy and extremely eccentric couple from Dublin. He grew up in comfort, but deeply lonely—until he met Julian, a hot-tempered and devilishly charming man. That’s how the story of Cyril, lasting his whole life, begins: full of successes and disappointments, incredible coincidences, and fateful decisions. It will be a journey toward himself—toward his identity, toward his roots, even though they tried to reject him.
In this new and most personal novel, John Boyne paints an impressive panorama of life in Ireland from the mid–20th century to the present—seen through the eyes of an ordinary person. It’s a story of how anger, jealousy, envy, intolerance that torment a person and an entire country gradually subside, making room for peace. A touching novel full of irony and humor about an era that you can already call a thing of the past.