The Spinning Heart

“My lovely, lovely Triona […] She could have gone with any of them smart boys that got the real money out of the boom: the architects, solicitors, auctioneers. […] She saw more in me than I knew was there.” 

Bobby describes Triona and also reveals that, before the economic crash, the economy was booming because of real estate. Massive amounts of land had been sold, and Pokey and his crew began building luxury estates on the land. Many people in the village, like Bobby, thought that the boom was permanent, that people would always need new houses built. However, once it all collapses and Pokey leaves without paying his workers their pensions, it’s clear that the only ones who came out ahead were the architects, solicitors, and auctioneers, because they made their profits before everything went under.

“I had a right swagger there for a couple of years, thinking I was a great fella. Foreman, I was, clearing a grand a week. Set for life. Houses would never stop going up. I’d see babies like our own being pushed around the village below and think: lovely, work for the future, they’ll all need their own houses some day too.” 

Bobby explains why he got swept up in the illusion that the economic boom was permanent, and why everyone was so devastated when it crashed. Bobby was making presumably more money than he ever had before, and from that vantage point, it seemed like people would always need the services that he and Pokey’s crew provided. With so many people making so much and then suddenly making no money at all, the small village itself seems to collapse: people flee to find work in other cities or countries, people turn on each other, and there is an overall pervasive feeling of hopelessness. 

“I was as smart as any of the posh lads in school. […] I couldn’t ever let on I knew anything, though, that would have been suicide in my gang.”

Bobby explains why he never pursued academia, despite his intellectual capabilities: He was afraid of chastisement from his peers. In his small village, there is a perception that real men don’t pursue school; they work with their hands. Even though Bobby could excel in school, he decided against it to fit in with the other men in town.

“I love my first son more than my second son. […] I gave my second boy everything, to try to make up for it […].” 

Josie explains how he spoiled Pokey to make up for not loving him enough. In this moment, Josie is wondering why Pokey turned out the way he did. Josie thinks that it must be his own fault, because whether it’s nature or nurture that shapes a person, he is responsible for both. He feels ashamed for what Pokey did to the men in the village, but he doesn’t know how to make things right. Instead, he is often lost in reveries about where things went wrong with Pokey.

“I’ve had years of eyes at my door. Eyes that can’t meet mine, full of hunger when they arrive and full of guilt as they leave. Eyes full of laughter, thinking I’m only a joke; eyes full of tears. I’ve seen eyes full of hate, and I never knew why those men hated me. I’d never blame a man for calling to me. Men have to do what they have to do. Nature overpowers them.” 

Lily used to be a prostitute in the small village, and here she explains how the men used to treat her. Lily has intimately known many of the men in the village, and in her older age it seems that she’s contemplated the motivations and psyches of the men she’s known. It’s clear that most of the men that came to her felt guilt and shame for their actions, but she never judged them for seeking her. Instead, she justifies their behavior, saying it’s just the way men are. 

“The sound floats up along the road to me, waved along by the leaves of the trees. It puts me in mind of my own dry joints […] He’s beautiful, that boy […] His auld father is a horrible yoke. He got all his mother’s goodness, that boy.” 

Lily can hear the sound of the spinning heart decoration on Frank’s gate. Her own state is reflected in this worn and weathered decoration: She feels as if she’s lost her beauty to the aftermath of age. She believes that Bobby is a good man who took after his mother, and not Frank, who everyone thinks is a bad man.

“I love all my children the same way a swallow loves the blue sky […] Like the men that came to my door, nature overpowers me. […] I don’t know why they all ran from me. […] I know a concoction that will send me away into dreams from which I’ll never wake. […] There’ll be no one sad after me, imagine.” 

Earlier, Lily explains that she doesn’t judge the men that came to her because she believes men can’t resist their nature; even though they felt guilt, shame, or even hatred about seeing her, they were compelled to do so beyond their control. In the same way, she can’t resist loving her children because it’s in her nature, even though her children have all grown to resent her. She doesn’t want to burden her children, so she plans to commit suicide when she’s too old to take care of herself. She is alone and doesn’t have hope in her future. 

“In this country I speak in sentences of two words or three. I nod and smile often and I feel redness in my face when spoken to. When I worked each day on building sites, the foreman would point at things and ask with his eyebrows raised for understanding.” 

Vasya is a young man who moved from Siberia to Ireland in search of work, and he used to work for Pokey. Unlike many of the other men in the small village, Vasya saved much of his money, so even without a job he is able to pay his bills. He feels separate from the other men because of the language barrier. The other men aren’t interested in his culture; instead, they often make fun of him, and most call him Russian because they don’t care to know where he’s actually from.

“My house and the old lady’s were the only ones he could finish, because we were the only ones who’d paid. We heard he’d put all his money into some stupid thing to do with a fake island or something out in Dubai. Now he’s made a run for it.” 

Réaltín’s quote explains how she ended up in one of Pokey’s houses, and it also alludes to Pokey’s dishonesty, greed, and cowardice. Pokey invested money in a bogus venture instead of finishing a project he started that would have helped his own community. He wants more, but leaves his former employees with nothing on account of his own wrongdoing. He can’t face the consequences of his actions.

“Nana often wondered to know why in the hell people get into years and years of debt for motorcars. Wouldn’t one even do between two or three houses? Everyone does be going the same way anyway. That way the expense could be divided up and shared.” 

Timmy explains his Nana’s views. She loved living in the same village where she and her ancestors were raised, and many of her views conflict with those of the younger generations. Many people in the small village have cars, but Nana couldn’t understand why anyone would need one; because most things a person might need could be found in the village, and if not, there are cheap buses to take a person into town. Nana was a frugal woman, and it seems she was confused by the extravagance of younger generations. 

“It’s only the want of a ride is making me all emotional at the moment. That’s the pervasive influence of popular culture: I think I’m sad over Lorna. It’s all this shite on MTV. On an intellectual level, I couldn’t give a shite about her. It’s a strange dichotomy, so it is; feeling and knowing; the feeling feels truer than the knowing of its falseness.” 

Brian claims that he’s not genuinely sad about his breakup with Lorna; he’s only missing having sex with her. Brian is an unreliable narrator: he continues to cry over Lorna, and it’s evident that he misses more than just sex. He claims that pop culture has brainwashed him into thinking he’s sad; however, this is his way of justifying having feelings that he is uncomfortable with. 

“I could easily kill them both, but I need a way of making sure everyone knows what they are before I move against them. […] If I kill them and expose them for what they are, I’ll be a hero. […] I’m going to have to take that child from the girl who lives near Dorothy. […] Then I’ll kill Mother and Dorothy and tell everyone that I apprehended them just as they were about to sacrifice the child.” 

Trevor explains why he wants to kidnap Réaltín’s son, Dylan. Trevor is convinced that his mother and her friend Dorothy are evil, snake-tongued creatures, and that the only way he can kill them is to kidnap Dylan and frame them. Trevor most likely inherited his father’s schizophrenia and suffers from paranoid delusions, thinking that he’s dying and that his mother isn’t human. He often daydreams about killing various people so that he is seen as a hero. 

“The wan that had the child for me got a leather couch, two leather armchairs, a chandelier, a microwave, a fridge-freezer, the whole lot. […] I should of bursted in through the door and […] had a proper go at playing around with the young fella, but she told me fuck off, the welfare pricks were all over them like flies on shite that time.” 

Jason describes the mother of his child—a woman who wanted him to get her pregnant on purpose so that she could receive government assistance, which shows the potential abuse of the welfare system. He visits her and his son in her home that has been paid for and furnished by welfare money. Jason feels unjustly treated by this woman because she purposely got pregnant with his child, dumped him, and won’t let him see his own son. 

“It’s just like Réaltín to make everything about her, though. Someone gets murdered, and it’s all about Réaltín. How she feels, how she is being victimized, how she can’t to the country shop without people gawking at her with their big country mouths hanging open. That’s Réaltín. She always asks how I am by rote; she never actually wants to know.” 

Hillary is Réaltín’s best friend, and here she explains the extent of Réaltín’s selfishness. Bobby is in jail for allegedly killing his own father; Réaltín only cares about how that will make her look because the town thinks the two are having an affair. Réaltín focuses on how much she’ll miss Bobby while he’s in jail, but does not think about the tragedy’s effect on his actual family. Hillary’s relationship with Réaltín is one-sided: Hillary’s mother is sick, but Réaltín wouldn’t know because she never asks about Hillary’s life. 

“I often wonder why I was born at all […] I think of the ma and the da and how good they always were, and how they always encouraged me, even though it was pure obvious I was the waster in the family […] .” 

Seanie admits that he’s depressed; his depression is so severe that he questions why he was born and thinks of suicide. He explains that he has a wonderful family with supportive parents but was never able to do anything productive with himself. His biggest accomplishment is the number of women he’s slept with, and he doesn’t know how to better himself because he has no hope for the future. 

“Things was building up a long time inside in me. I nearly drove over a gimpy lad up above in Lackagh that wouldn’t leave me in to a site to take plant back. There was no bollocks else up there; I could easily have drove out over him. I thought about it and all, gave it proper consideration. He’ll never know how close he came to being shipped back out foreign, flat-packed.” 

Denis killed Frank. Denis explains that he’s been struggling with anger issues for quite some time. After losing his job and being constantly belittled by his wife, he’s had an abundance of pent up aggression. This helps explain why, when he went to Frank’s searching for Bobby, Frank’s snide remark and disdain was likely the tipping point for Denis’ violence, as it reminded Denis of his own abusive father. 

“That girl whose child was taken from the crèche is a blow-in, Mam says. Blow-in. That phrase is used so derisively. As if to say it’s a failing to not have been born and bred here, to have settled in a place outside of the place of your birth. Mam doesn’t mean anything bad by it, though. It’s hard to shake your prejudices, I know.”

Mags is Josie’s daughter and Pokey’s sister. She reveals that the townspeople are often prejudiced against those who are not originally from the village. Mags knows the damage prejudices can have firsthand: Her father is ashamed of her because she is a lesbian. Therefore, Mags sympathizes with Réaltín, the “blow-in,” but Mags also understands why her own mother holds that prejudice. 

“I wouldn’t have said Bobby Mahon killed his father any more than the man in the moon. But he rang me that day and asked me in a soft, flat voice to come down to the house and when I got there he was standing in the kitchen, looking down at his father in a puddle of blood with a piece of timber in his hand that was wet with red. When I asked him was it he did it, he told me he didn’t know.” 

Jim is a cop who explains what happened after Frank was murdered. Bobby is the one who found Frank’s body; in Bobby’s state of shock, he can’t recall if he’s the one who killed Frank. At this point in the novel, the reader knows that Denis is the murderer, but Bobby is the one who is arrested. Jim doesn’t believe that Bobby murdered Frank. The other townspeople are also in disbelief, as most see him as one of the most moral people in town. 

“I watched him when he arrived in that day and found me dead and dirty in a puddle of blood and shit. […] He stood looking down at me and I stood beside him looking down at myself and I said: Good man Bobby. You’re a good man, Bobby. You sees things more clearly too, through dead eyes.” 

As a cognizant soul standing beside Bobby, Frank explains what happened after his own death. Frank’s death and posthumous perspective culminate the themes of emotional disconnection and masculinity. It is not until Frank is dead, and Bobby can no longer hear him, that Frank admits Bobby is a good man. Frank cared for his son but could not show it during his lifetime. 

“His mother had a fool made out of him, kissing him and telling him he was beautiful every two minutes. […] I had to prepare him for the hard world. […] She forgot about me the very minute she squeezed him out of herself.” 

This quote reveals that Frank’s harsh criticism of Bobby has two sources. First, Frank claims that his wife coddled Bobby, so it was Frank’s responsibility to balance her softness with toughness to prepare Bobby for the real world. Later in the chapter, we learn that Frank’s own father treated him the same way, except Frank’s father was physically abusive. Second, Frank mentions that his wife forgot about Frank once Bobby was born. This lifelong jealousy also causes Frank to gloat when Bobby’s relationship falls apart with his mother. However, this relationship only fell apart because Bobby and his mother wanted to distance themselves from Frank’s criticism and harshness; it was Frank who drove Bobby and his mother apart, but Frank won’t acknowledge this. 

“I wonder how is it I was able to do to Bobby exactly what was done to me, even with my useless hands bound by cowardice. I wonder how will I ever be reconciled to myself. I wonder how will I look upon the face of God.” 

In this pivotal moment, Frank admits that he only repeated what his father had done to him. Frank knows this was wrong and struggles with both guilt and shame at the end of his life. 

“I always knew him, years and years before he first spoke to me, standing on the sticky floor in front of the bar of the Cave inside in town. […] I was suddenly aware of all the other things behind his eyes: fear, doubt, shyness, sadness.” 

Triona describes how she first fell in love with Bobby. Though she knew of Bobby her whole life, this is the moment she notices his hidden emotions. Bobby reminds Triona of her late cousin who killed himself because he felt smothered under his mother’s joyless control; this semblance motivates Triona to care for Bobby, to save him from his childhood and all the hurt he keeps within. 

“It’s not like he even said anything that would sound to someone from outside as being all that terrible. […] It was just the life of awful, awful coldness, and the constant wearing down of their spirits […] .” 

Triona explains the tenor of Bobby’s childhood with Frank; Frank was not overtly abusive, but he drained the family’s joy. Frank never said a kind or encouraging word to Bobby. This parallels Triona’s late cousin’s life; her cousin wasn’t abused, but he lived in a joyless home. Triona’s affection for Bobby stems from trying to save in him what she couldn’t save in her cousin.