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The Butcher's Blessing Audiobook
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A murder on the Irish border; an ancient folk tradition dying out. The Butchers Blessing is a novel about families and farmers; about mythic rituals and mad cows; about the stories we leave behind and the ones we cling to, no matter the cost. 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 Butchers daughter means a life of tangled ambition and incredible loneliness. For her mother, Grá, its 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.
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About Ruth Gilligan
Heather O’Neill has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway plays. Her audio narration credits include Blessed Are the Cheesemakers, The Accidental, Field of Blood, and The Dead Hour.
About the Narrators
John Keating is an actor, voice talent, and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. His numerous acting credits include Roundabout Theatre’s production of Juno and the Paycock and La Mama ETC’s production of Cat and the Moon, as well as various parts with the Irish Repertory Theater and the Irish Arts Center. He can also be seen in the HBO miniseries John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.
Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her previous works include The Lonely Hearts Hotel, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads, as well as Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, and Daydreams of Angels, which were shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. O’Neill has also won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award.