WOW. I am stunned with how quickly I blew through this book. I think I just ignored my life for 24 hours and dove full-on into the lives of these characters. There is a strange, creepy vibe throughout the story that I am still feeling after finishing it, but instead of repulsing me I’m even more intrigued thinking about it. I’m SO happy I took the recommendation to read this (thanks Pam!) because it may be the best book I’ve read in years. A Also want to read everything this author ever writes... just beautifully crafted! ( )

How far back in the past should a novel take us for it to be considered “historical fiction”? Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers is set in the rural borderlands of Ireland in 1996, at a time when a widespread outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as “mad cow disease”, was threatening to scupper the British, and then, eventually, the Irish beef industry. That was less than three decades ago, and yet it already seems a different era, one which Gilligan accurately and authentically evokes through contemporary references: Euro 1996 football games were showing on TV, the Spice Girls were assailing the charts, recent legislative enactments had decriminalized homosexuality and just introduced divorce.

The Butchers is grounded in the reality of living in Ireland in the 90s, but, strikingly, it is also built on a supernatural or mythological premise referring to a curse supposedly lain on Ireland by a “farmer’s widow” of olden times:

... since the war had claimed all eight of her men She decreed, henceforth, no man could slaughter alon; Instead, seven others had to be by his side to stop the memory of her grief from dying too...

According to the ancient Irish custom, there had to be eight men present at every cattle slaughter; eight different hands touching the animal’s hide as it passed from this life to the next. So now eight Butchers spent eleven months of the year calling on the few families around the country who still believed, and killing their beasts in the traditional, curse-abiding way...

The novel revolves around a number of characters who are, in some way or another, connected to the Butchers or their beliefs. There’s Grá, the long-suffering wife of one of the Eight, and her twelve-year old daughter Úna; there’s Fionn, a small-time farmer with demons in his past and a wife with a debilitating tumour; there’s Fionn’s teenage son Davey, who has heard of the Butchers from his mother and wants her to meet them to satisfy her dying wish.

In the brave new world of 1996 Ireland, the Butchers seem increasingly out of place and, as the BSE crisis escalates they are also viewed with suspicion by the non-believers. So when one of the Eight is found dead in a slaughterhouse, hanging by his feet on a meat hook suspended from the ceiling, the Butchers feel it is time for them to quit. Úna’s dreams of following in her father’s footsteps seem shattered… Or perhaps not. Twenty-two years after these calamitous events, a photograph appears on a New York gallery wall showing the Butcher’s hanging body. How has it ended up there and what fresh light will it shed on this “cold case”? It will be up to Úna to solve the mystery and avenge the man’s death.

The Butchers is, first and foremost, a great story, brilliantly told. It is tautly plotted, revealing its secrets in unexpected twists. The frequent changes in points of view introduce variety and keep up the momentum. It’s been some time since I read such a page turner.

But this is just one aspect of this book. It is, in fact, a novel of many parts, combining as it does a generally realistic storyline with elements of supernatural and crime fiction. Davey’s studies of classical mythology also serve as an excuse to introduce a symbolical subtext where references to myths reflect certain plot elements (to be honest, I found this to be rather heavy-handed and the least appealing ingredient in the book)

However, if I were pressed to pigeon-hole this genre-bending book, I would say it strikes me as primarily a coming-of-age novel. We see Úna growing up as a rebel against the patriarchal expectations of society; Davey coming to terms with his identity and sexuality; their parents questioning the choices they made when they were their children’s age. Equally importantly, this is a novel about the coming of age of a nation: contemporary Ireland. Gilligan’s portrayal of this rapidly changing country is deliciously ambivalent. Whilst on the one hand new civil rights were being introduced, and this is positively portrayed in the novel, the country was also being overwhelmed by a capitalist culture where money ruled, connections between politics and business were the order of the day and traditions were being forgotten.

Several recent novels have used folklore and the otherworldly to address present-day themes. This might explain, for instance, why witches have become such a potent and frequent feminist symbol in contemporary fiction. With its nods to the supernatural, The Butchers could be seen as the latest addition to this phenomenon – but it certainly stands out both in ideas and in their execution.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-butchers-ruth-gilligan-review.htm... ( )

Starting my journey through The Butchers’ Blessing, I expected a Gothic fantasy full of Irish myth and the lives of country folk following ancient traditions.

Instead I found a novel closer ro an exposé of corruption and Mad Cows Disease (BSE) that was rife in the late 20th century in the UK and Western Europe, all wrapped up in a blanket story about the career of a photographer whose rise to fame is intertwined with Irish politics and artistic deception.

The Irish beliefs in folk remedies for good luck, and the tales of miser and loneliness of rural life are still there, but serve more as a tapestry for the exposing of the photographer, the politician, and revenge that results. ( )

##The Butchers' Blessing##
This book was read as an ARC, but did not include a requirement for a review. I am posting this review because I found the book worth reading.
The hallmarks of good books include: well-developed characters, plots with sub-plots and interconnections between these, clear structures that both carry forward the plots and keep readers engaged, story action that rises and falls at different times, consistent and plausible details and timelines, as well as a host of other things. The challenge to a writer is to balance all of these things while still telling the story that the author hopes to tell.
The Butchers Blessing includes all of these while also intriguing readers about where each sub-plot is headed, how they will all intertwine, and where they will lead.
It is not a happy or uplifting novel; in fact, it is rather dark. It is neither escapism nor does it fit neatly into the category of suspense novels. It is a complex novel with complex themes and complicated characters.
While reading this novel, the reader is also likely to learn a lot about Irish culture and Irish history. Each is interwoven into the plot, essential both to the action of the plot and to its fulfillment.
The story centers around an old Irish tradition for the butchering of cattle. Deep in the Irish folklore, a group of professional butchers begins to rove from town to town to properly butcher the meat. The folklore suggests that the butchers resulted from a curse placed 800 years ago by a widowed witch.
These butchers traveled in groups of eight, all men, and followed a very secretive ritual for performing their grisly duty. The secret nature of their ritual at one time fit within the Irish superstitions of the past 800 years, but has evolved into a source of fear among farmers who express their fears through shunning The Butchers and their families.The number of groups of butchers has diminished, finally ending with only one group, around which the story is written.
Cuch is a member of this group; Una, his daughter, wants to take up her father’s profession become one of The Butchers when a vacancy appears even though no female has ever been a 'butcher.'
Gra, Cuch's wife and Una' father, has tired of the months of Cuch is away from home year after year and begins seeking other companionship. Una hates her for this.
A subplot also deals with a family which has become estranged from each other due to a drunken act of violence by the father. The family includes Gra’s sister, Eileen, usually called ‘Lina’, her husband, Fionn, and their son, Davey.
Gra and Lina have not seen each other since Lina left home as a teenager about 20 years before the main action of the novel.
The novel tells parallel stories of each family, even though the two families only come to know each other very far into the plot of the book.
All of this is set into the background of the "Mad Cow Disease" which led to the quarantine and/or slaughter of all of England's cattle in the late 20th Century. Irish cattlemen see the misfortune of the Brits as a means to improve the prices they receive for their uncontaminated beef.
However, a powerful, wealthy and ruthless man begins smuggling beef from outside Ireland into the country, cashing in on the premium prices the Irish were then getting. As would, and did, happen in real life, some of the smuggled beef was tainted and the disease spreads.
because of the suspicion, superstition and fear of them, The Butchers are held responsible and violence follows.
The Butchers' Blessing is a complicated story filled with complicated characters and plot. To set all of this in motion, however, the author had to do a lot of back-story development before beginning to really deliver the plot. It takes a long time for this to happen and the book runs the risk of losing readers before that work is finished. It is work sticking it out, however, and the reward will be a worthwhile reading experience.
Personally, the publisher’s blurb left me unexcited about actually reading the book. It was an ARC, but I had been given the option to review it or not, depending on what I chose to do.
Thus, I went into the book not expecting to like it, and the slow initial development of the characters and setting almost made me stop reading. Nevertheless, I saw in the quality of the writing the work of an author worth reading. Moreover, the best way to get out of a rut of reading the same kinds of things too often is to reach into a genre I would not usually select.
( )

How far back in the past should a novel take us for it to be considered “historical fiction”? Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers is set in the rural borderlands of Ireland in 1996, at a time when a widespread outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as “mad cow disease”, was threatening to scupper the British, and then, eventually, the Irish beef industry. That was less than three decades ago, and yet it already seems a different era, one which Gilligan accurately and authentically evokes through contemporary references: Euro 1996 football games were showing on TV, the Spice Girls were assailing the charts, recent legislative enactments had decriminalized homosexuality and just introduced divorce.

The Butchers is grounded in the reality of living in Ireland in the 90s, but, strikingly, it is also built on a supernatural or mythological premise referring to a curse supposedly lain on Ireland by a “farmer’s widow” of olden times:

... since the war had claimed all eight of her men She decreed, henceforth, no man could slaughter alon; Instead, seven others had to be by his side to stop the memory of her grief from dying too...

According to the ancient Irish custom, there had to be eight men present at every cattle slaughter; eight different hands touching the animal’s hide as it passed from this life to the next. So now eight Butchers spent eleven months of the year calling on the few families around the country who still believed, and killing their beasts in the traditional, curse-abiding way...

The novel revolves around a number of characters who are, in some way or another, connected to the Butchers or their beliefs. There’s Grá, the long-suffering wife of one of the Eight, and her twelve-year old daughter Úna; there’s Fionn, a small-time farmer with demons in his past and a wife with a debilitating tumour; there’s Fionn’s teenage son Davey, who has heard of the Butchers from his mother and wants her to meet them to satisfy her dying wish.

In the brave new world of 1996 Ireland, the Butchers seem increasingly out of place and, as the BSE crisis escalates they are also viewed with suspicion by the non-believers. So when one of the Eight is found dead in a slaughterhouse, hanging by his feet on a meat hook suspended from the ceiling, the Butchers feel it is time for them to quit. Úna’s dreams of following in her father’s footsteps seem shattered… Or perhaps not. Twenty-two years after these calamitous events, a photograph appears on a New York gallery wall showing the Butcher’s hanging body. How has it ended up there and what fresh light will it shed on this “cold case”? It will be up to Úna to solve the mystery and avenge the man’s death.

The Butchers is, first and foremost, a great story, brilliantly told. It is tautly plotted, revealing its secrets in unexpected twists. The frequent changes in points of view introduce variety and keep up the momentum. It’s been some time since I read such a page turner.

But this is just one aspect of this book. It is, in fact, a novel of many parts, combining as it does a generally realistic storyline with elements of supernatural and crime fiction. Davey’s studies of classical mythology also serve as an excuse to introduce a symbolical subtext where references to myths reflect certain plot elements (to be honest, I found this to be rather heavy-handed and the least appealing ingredient in the book)

However, if I were pressed to pigeon-hole this genre-bending book, I would say it strikes me as primarily a coming-of-age novel. We see Úna growing up as a rebel against the patriarchal expectations of society; Davey coming to terms with his identity and sexuality; their parents questioning the choices they made when they were their children’s age. Equally importantly, this is a novel about the coming of age of a nation: contemporary Ireland. Gilligan’s portrayal of this rapidly changing country is deliciously ambivalent. Whilst on the one hand new civil rights were being introduced, and this is positively portrayed in the novel, the country was also being overwhelmed by a capitalist culture where money ruled, connections between politics and business were the order of the day and traditions were being forgotten.

Several recent novels have used folklore and the otherworldly to address present-day themes. This might explain, for instance, why witches have become such a potent and frequent feminist symbol in contemporary fiction. With its nods to the supernatural, The Butchers could be seen as the latest addition to this phenomenon – but it certainly stands out both in ideas and in their execution.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-butchers-ruth-gilligan-review.htm... ( )