The Heart's Invisible Furies

by John Boyne

But that doesn’t make me a homosexual, does it? How could it be? I love Judy Garland and Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. I never miss any of their pictures.’

But this was Dublin, the nation’s capital. The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it.