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The Butchers' Blessing
Current price:
$16.95
Publication Date: November 16th, 2021
Publisher:
Tin House Books
ISBN:
9781951142742
Pages:
0
An extraordinary novel of quiet turmoil, filled with the clash of generations, beliefs, and realities. A beautiful tale of the strife of traditions in a changing Ireland, woven together with the threads of a modern-day mystery. Perhaps the most elegant bit is the underlying story of a girl trying desperately to hold together the traditions of men. Impossible to put down and harder to forget, this novel lingers and feels like fog.
November 2020 Indie Next List
A beautiful mix of legends, nature, love, family, passion, and the unrelenting passage and destruction of time. Not to be confused with a simple thriller and probably the only book you’ll ever read about a mystical slaughter technique.
Winter 2022 Reading Group Indie Next List
Description
Winner of the 2021 RSL Ondaatje Prize
Set in the gothic wilds of Ireland, The Butchers’ Blessing is a haunting and unforgettable thriller brimming with secrecy, tradition, and superstition.
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 man, hung upside down in a pose of unspeakable violence.
Thrilling, dark, and richly atmospheric, The Butchers’ Blessing is an engrossing incantation?mesmerizing in both language and story?conjuring a family and a country on the edge of irrevocable change.
