Lithuania is part of my heritage. A part I don't know much about. I loved this beautiful novel that taught me something. I love the story. the characters the title and the cover. I love Ruth's writing

I had no item where this book was going or how the three stories fit together. When they came together, a beautiful, thoughtful piece of writing emerged. An examination of love, faith, religious intolerance, conversion, storytelling, family... I could go on. There is much to consider in this story.
Highly recommended.

By VICKI ROCK

“Nine Folds Make A Paper Swan” by Ruth Gilligan, Tin House Books, 336 pages, $20.

This is a collection of three stories. In the first, Ruth Greenberg, 8, and her sister Ester, 10, live in Lithuania. Their father tells them that they are moving to America. Because of a mixup, they end up in Ireland.

The second story is set in 1958. Shem is placed in a psychiatric facility. Lastly, the third story, is about Aisling. She is Irish Catholic and falls in love with Noah, who is Jewish and who wants her to convert.

The three stories overlap. But the development of the characters falls flat. It is really disjointed.

Fascinating connection of stories bridging the Jewish and Irish experience in search of a better life in America. This story seems especially relevant now.

Of course, there is nothing remarkable about the process, this much at least she knows. Because we do it to ourselves all the time— turn our lives into a story— anything to try to keep the chaos of the self in check.
Three separate narratives presented with intricate detail and knitted together showcase the history of Jewish people in Ireland. One immigrant family from Lithuania struggles to find their place in Cork when they mistakenly disembarked their ship bound ultimately for New York. One young man, silenced in an attempt to protect his mother's secret out of loyalty and love finds solace in the story of another. One young Irish woman living in London grapples with a decision that with change her life forever. Nine Fold Make A Paper Swan by Ruth Gilligan is a rich examination of humanity and the struggles we face that transcend generations.

“What about a man who courted his woman via pigeon mail, so he called the chef the night before their wedding to ask if he can cook the bird and serve it at the reception, to allow the guests to ingest the effort of their love? To tear the brown, gamey flesh and hook the wishbone with their little fingers and pull either side ’til it snaps?”
The story opens with Ruth, a child aboard a ship bound for New York where they are hoping to reunite with family and start anew. However, they make a misguided early departure from the ship and land in Cork, Ireland.

Just as long as she ignored the pull in her pocket where the compass tried to drag her down. It must be broken too, she told herself, the magnets somehow mangled when the boat slammed the shore, because as they boarded the tram she had checked it, just to be sure. She had stood at the edge of the dock and gazed out at the Atlantic, knowing the sea was meant to be East. The arrow had dithered, stuttering like a lip before tears. And then it had fallen down. South. The sea spreading off the bottom of Ireland and away.
Outsiders by birth and belief Ruth and her family attempt to navigate the tricky waters as immigrants in the early 20th century. Ruth looks to her father, a playwright with a fierce imagination who crafts fantastical stories, for escape from their harsh reality. Many of these stories have a mysterious origin until Ruth understands that sometimes the most mysterious thing of all is one's own family.
A wall of hush lingered in the room. Not one of them moved. Instead they just hovered there in the darkness of a north Lithuanian shed with a beautiful young girl and an earnest young boy, stupid with love; a woman they had never quite liked and a man they had never quite understood. But suddenly the light had caught them differently, just two characters in a story, right back at the beginning— a story that had finally been told. As Ruth realized that now, everything really was lost.
Shem Sweeney is a young man trapped in the silence of his own creation. In an effort to protect his mother, Shem becomes a mute to avoid the temptation to share a secret that he was sure would break her heart. Keeping with the beliefs of the late 1950's, he is sent to Montague House, an asylum run by Catholic nuns, with the hopes of restoring his ability to speak. Shem begins a complicated friendship with the only other Jewish person at Montague House, Alf, who coerces Shem into transcribing his memories before he succumbs to his illness. Through these exchanges we discover the depth and details behind Shem's history.
So I wondered now if a family could ever really exist without these lies, these secrets, to keep it alive. Or if, in the end, that was the definition of love.
Aisling Creedon is a present day obituary columnist for a newspaper in London. Her relationship with Noah takes a significant turn when he presents her with a second-hand Irish written book of instructions on converting to Judaism. In a flight of panic, she abandons Noah following a Hanukkah celebration with his family to return to her family in Ireland where they are celebrating Christmas.
Not even a tiny white swan bent into place, the lines so defined that when you take it apart it can just be put back together again, in nine simple folds, exactly the same as before.
She struggles with the weight of and the possible consequences of her decisions- both to leave Noah so abruptly and to shed her past, her family, her life before. Searching for answers she seeks out the woman who owned the book prior to her hoping to see satisfaction in her decision. Through this quest aided by annotations in the book made by the previous owner, Aisling reveals the stitching that held these three narratives together.
He picks it up. He stares at the title, still struggling to believe. And then he reads, knowing he might not stop, not tomorrow or even the tomorrow after that when the pigeons have flown off somewhere better again, resisting the urge to come home. Because in the end, it is the only story to have survived.
With imaginative prose each story is woven to a satisfying completeness. A powerful account of what defines family and what we do to belong, Nine Folds Make A Paper Swan takes the mostly unknown stories of the Jewish community in Ireland and uses it as a mirror to reflect the greater human experience.

At the turn of the century, when Ruth was eight, her mother, father and older sister emigrated from Lithuania, heading for America and hope of am better life. After a sea journey of many days they arrive, knowing little English, they think they hear the crew yelling New York, but alas they are saying Cork, and instead of America they have arrived in Ireland. In the fifties a young man is institutionalized after he quit speaking at his Bar Mitzvah, and present day a woman's Jewish boyfriend asks her to convert. So three different threads, an though within two long we can see where the second story of the young man intersects with the story of Ruth, for the longest time I couldn't see where the third story did, or why it was even necessary. Brilliant though, when it is revealed, and in fact is rather startling and sad.

The Jewish settlements in Ireland, which I freely admit to knowing nothing about, most making a life in a place where they hadn't intended to be, many wanting to leave but for the present stuck. Ruth though, and I loved her strength and determination, makes the most of what is given her, wanting to make this place her home. We learn a little of the struggles of these early Jews, the discrimination they faced while trying to hold on to their own identity and a little Irish history as well. Her story was by far my favorite, but the young Jewish man in the institution and the legless man who is his roommate, whose story he writes down, was well done as well.

Taken in totality this was an amazing book, told in a clear and concise voice, it leaves an impression. I very much enjoyed this novel and learned some history as well. So glad I decided to try this one and another author to watch for, see what she does next.

ARC from Netgalley.

Nine Folds Make A Paper Swan is Ruth Gilligan’s captivating debut novel focusing on the experience of the Irish Jew. Storytelling and misunderstanding are at the heart of the plot. The sprawling saga is told from alternating perspectives of three main characters. Each of their viewpoints is separated by about fifty years. Eight-year-old Ruth and her family emigrate from Lithuania in 1901 on a ship bound for New York. When their boat docks in Cork they mistakenly disembark and Ireland becomes their home. Ruth’s father is a struggling playwright and storytelling becomes an important part of Ruth’s life. Shem is struck mute at his bar mitzvah. His desire to protect the mother he adores has rendered him speechless. He is institutionalized five years later, in 1958. Shem’s salvation at the institution is documenting a mesmerizing story told to him by another patient. Aisling is an expat journalist living in London in 2011. She has been dating Noah for two years and is in love with him. He insists that she convert to Judaism so they can marry, but she is daunted by his request. When Noah gives Aisling a used copy of an Irish book about conversion the book overtakes her life.
Nine Folds Make A Paper Swan is an extraordinary novel because of Gilligan’s unique plot and how she unites the pieces of her story. Discovering the connections between the main characters is as rewarding as solving a difficult puzzle. Gilligan is like an origami artist. She has made the pages of her book into a work of art.

I am a fan of stories that are seemingly unrelated and then intertwine. Gilligan has done a brilliant job in this. Each story is a piece of the puzzle and, after the last page is read, we can truly appreciate the whole picture. However, my favorite thing about this book is that it touches upon a history that was previously unknown to me: that of immigrant Jews and the landed Irish.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.

Three individuals from different periods in time, all Jews living in Ireland, living what appears to be unrelated lives but wait! Slowly, subtly details emerge. Bits and pieces here and there tying them together until in the end, it is all revealed...or mostly so.
I struggled to make sense for the first part of the book until I convinced myself to just give up trying to understand every detail and just let the story flow. A wonderful book that touches one at a very deep level. The stories of Jews living in a foreign land often longing for home. Lives intertwined in intricate and unlikely ways but still the story does not feel forced.