The Butchers' Blessing

by Ruth Gilligan Narrated by John Keating, Heather O'Neill

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

An achingly beautiful novel of family, tradition, Ireland and the deep secrets buried in all three.

Every year, Úna prepares for her father to leave her. He will wave goodbye early one morning, then disappear with seven other men to traverse the Irish countryside. Together, these men form the Butchers, a group that roams from farm to farm, enacting ancient methods of cattle slaughter.

The Butchers' Blessing moves between the events of 1996 and the present, offering a simmering glimpse into the modern tensions that surround these eight fabled men. For Úna, being a Butcher's daughter means a life of tangled ambition and incredible loneliness. For her mother, Grá, it's a life of faith and longing, of performing a promise that she may or may not be able to keep. For nonbeliever Fionn, the Butchers represent a dated and complicated reality, though for his son, Davey, they represent an entirely new world?and potentially new love. For photographer Ronan, the Butchers are ideal subjects: representatives of an older, more folkloric Ireland whose survival is now being tested. As he moves through the countryside, Ronan captures this world image by image?a lake, a cottage, and his most striking photo: a single Butcher, hung upside down in a pose of unspeakable violence.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Masterful."— The Irish Times

"Grips throughout, offering a vivid portrait of one of Ireland’s less heralded corners."— The Guardian

"Gripping, Gothic, and moody."— BuzzFeed

"An achingly beautiful novel of family, tradition, Ireland and the deep secrets buried in all three."— B&N Reads

"Steeped in the rich history of Ireland."— PopSugar

"Remarkable. . . . With beautifully crafted prose, suspenseful plotting, and imaginative scope."— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A gripping tale of menace and foreboding."— Booklist

"A contemplative coming-of-age thriller. . . . An atmospheric portrait of a country at a crossroads, moving away from the traditional ways and toward a slick new millennial future. Thoroughly lovely."— Kirkus Reviews

"An achingly real portrayal of rural life in Ireland and an ode to the Republic’s fraught history with its own folklore."— BookBrowse

"Gilligan braids beauty and brutality together in a seamless literary thriller. With plot twists worthy of Tana French and language reminiscent of Téa Obreht, this young Irish writer has crafted a story that is dark, wild, mythic, unsuspecting, and absolutely riveting."— Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon

"Excellent . . . completely gripping."— Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock

"Remarkable. . . . Realistic and hauntingly otherworldly."— Jan Carson, author of The Fire Starters

"Flawlessly, intricately plotted, with such a compelling central mystery that I binged it like a Netflix show. . . . Stunning."— Luke Kennard, author of The Transition

"I was hooked from the first page. It was an exhilarating, unsettling reading experience: I felt at once like an outsider and completely at home as I read and was at all times completely immersed and wowed at Ruth's storytelling prowess."— Donal Ryan, author of From a Low and Quiet Sea

Kirkus Reviews

2020-08-19
A contemplative coming-of-age thriller set against a modernizing Ireland.

Gilligan’s latest opens with the description of a photo: It's a dead man strung up by his feet like a cow. The photographer has never shown the image until now, although he believes it to be his finest work: “The Butcher,” is how he imagines it would be labeled. “County Monaghan, 1996.” The subject had belonged to a group of ritual cattle slaughters, eight men who’d roamed the countryside on foot, keeping the old customs alive for those who still believed. Then the novel skips backward in time, to 1996 and the circumstances that led to that one arresting image. It is a classic mystery format—start with the ending, then trace how we got here—but the novel is hardly a classic mystery. What unfolds instead is an understated family saga pulsing with quiet foreboding. There is a low hum of violence in the background, and the mounting threat of mad cow disease is never far away. At the story’s heart is 12-year-old Úna; the daughter of a Butcher, she yearns to carry on the tradition herself despite the supposed limitations of her gender. But there is also Úna’s mother, Grá, beautiful and lonely, haunted by the loss of her estranged sister, who left the family for the modern world. There is Fionn, a desperate dairy farmer with a dying wife trying to make good, and Fionn’s bookish son, Davey, whose penchant for the classics is his ticket out. And yet the strength here is not the richness of the characters—Úna, especially, feels generically free-spirited, a standard-issue tween literary heroine—but the richness of the world. It’s an atmospheric portrait of a country at a crossroads, moving away from the traditional ways and toward a slick new millennial future. Thoroughly lovely.

Cattle have never been so riveting.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172708350
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	11/10/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos