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Melancholy in the mountains Like its Montana setting, Kevin Barry’s novel is brutal and gorgeous “The Heart in Winter” is the epitome of the Western love story The Heart in Winter. By Kevin Barry. Doubleday; 256 pages; $28. Canongate; £16.99 Tom Rourke is a dope fiend with one foot already in the grave. He fancies himself a poet; the rest of Butte, Montana, fancies him a “mad little Irish motherfucker”. When he meets Polly Gillespie, newly wed to another man, both feel something shift. They don’t loiter long in Butte. The lovers strike out together for Pocatello, Idaho, from which they plan to ride the rails to San Francisco—and to freedom. From the very beginning of “The Heart in Winter”, a tragedy seems to be in the offing. This is typical of Kevin Barry, who writes lyrically of melancholic Irishmen. His previous book, “Night Boat to Tangier”, about two aged gangsters, was longlisted for the Booker prize in 2019. In this new novel, as in that one, a sense of fo
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