finished reading

I LOVE THIS BOOK! It begins with the birth in 1945 and advances by sevens through the years of Cyril Avery's life. I laughed. I cried. I was outraged at the intolerance of society. I was drawn into the story. A theme of the novel is Cyril's homosexuality. A theme of the novel is love--family, friends, and romantic. It's a poignant and somewhat intense look at man's hidden desires, and in this case, the man is Cyril. And I would add that Ireland is as much a character as any person in the book. The evolution of Cyril is the evolution of Ireland.

From the publisher:

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.