Spotlight on Ruth Gilligan
Spotlight on Ruth Gilligan
It’s a challenge for me as an author with a new pen name to gain visibility so I’m grateful to several talented and respected authors – some I know personally; some I don’t know at all – who provided wonderful early reviews of An Ordinary House.
As a thank you to them for taking time out of their busy schedules to read and write about my book, I’m featuring each author on my blog with a spotlight on their work.
Ruth Gilligan was my PhD supervisor at the University of Birmingham. The first draft of An Ordinary House formed the creative element of my thesis.
As well as being the first ever Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, Ruth is a bestselling author. Her literary thriller, The Butchers, won the 2021 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the 2024 Prix des Lecteurs in France.
A photograph is hung on a gallery wall for the very first time since it was taken two decades before. It shows a slaughterhouse 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.
I read and enjoyed this book when it first came out. Here’s my review.
Ruth’s other novels - all of them Irish bestsellers:
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan
Can You See Me?
Somewhere in Between
Forget
Purchase links are on Ruth’s Amazon page.
Her first play We Love & Then We Drown will run for two weeks at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.
Read more about Ruth on her website: https://www.ruthgilligan.com/
Ruth Gilligan had this to say about An Ordinary House:
“An exceptional psychological thriller that examines the lasting impacts of trauma, but also the ways in which victims' narratives can be distorted beyond repair. Unlike anything I have ever read - I devoured it.”