4 Stars
A nonstop slip and slide through life, one life in particular belong to Cyril Avery. From 1950s Ireland to Amsterdam to NYC and back again this is a lifetime.
Reading it is like plunging over a series of cataracts, each one you're sure could kill a person, but life just keeps on pushing. It's horrible, wonderful, heartbreaking, happy, and you wish it would stop, but it doesn't. Like life, it just keeps on swinging. Occasionally scooping you up and transporting leagues forward, but more often than not just hitting you squarely in the jaw.
This was a surprisingly quick read considering the length. The storytelling is compelling and the nature of the events pull the reader forward. It is not easy to put it down. I didn't cry once during the story, and there's plenty to be ripped apart by during the nearly five hundred pages. But the end, the last closing moments I confess got the better of me. My thanks to Shelby for raving about it because it certainly put it on my radar.
I've lost people before. I've known violence, I've known bigotry, I've known shame and I've known love. And somehow, I always survive.
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