Search results for ""author ruth gilligan""

Rich in plot and full of characters that have been neglected by Irish literature. - GuardianAt the start of the twentieth century, a young girl and her family emigrate from the continent in search of a better life in America, only to pitch up in Ireland by mistake. In 1958, a mute boy locked away in a mental institution outside of Dublin forms an unlikely friendship with a man consumed by the story of the love he lost nearly two decades earlier. And in present-day London, an Irish journalist is forced to confront her conflicting notions of identity and family when her Jewish boyfriend asks her to make a true leap of faith. Spanning generations and braiding together three unforgettable voices, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan shows us what it means to belong, and how storytelling can redeem us all.

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When Alice arrives on campus amidst the ancient splendour of Cambridge University, she thinks she's found her wonderland.Then one night something happens - one inexplicable act ruins everything and she finds herself alone.Alice will not admit defeat; having practically raised her two brothers single-handedly, she is good at being strong. Too good.But Soon her dark secret becomes too much and the cracks begin to show. Her weekly meetings with Flo, the stranger on the bench, become her lifeline. And try as she might to bury the dark truth of that awful night, she begins to realise that some things have to be faced up to. It's time for Alice to look at her broken reflection and start to put the pieces back together...

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***WINNER of the 2021 RSL Ondaatje Prize***'I binged it like a Netflix show... It's stunning' Luke Kennard, author of The Transition______________________________A photograph is hung on a gallery wall for the very first time since it was taken two decades before. It shows a slaughter house in rural Ireland, a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall, a meat hook suspended from the ceiling - and, from its sharp point, the lifeless body of a man hanging by his feet. The story of who he is and how he got there casts back into Irish folklore, of widows cursing the land and of the men who slaughter its cattle by hand. But modern Ireland is distrustful of ancient traditions, and as the BSE crisis in England presents get-rich opportunities in Ireland, few care about The Butchers, the eight men who roam the country, slaughtering the cows of those who still have faith in the old ways. Few care, that is, except for Fionn, the husband of a dying woman who still believes; their son Davey, who has fallen in love with the youngest of the Butchers; Gra, the lonely wife of one of the eight; and her 12-year-old daughter, Una, a girl who will grow up to carry a knife like her father, and who will be the one finally to avenge the man in the photograph.

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