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Irish Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine: A sparklingly polyphonic debut novel set in modern Belfast
The Benefactors Author : Wendy Erskine ISBN-13 : 978-1399741668 Publisher : Sceptre Guideline Price : £18.99 It was part of the mission of Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) to explain the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky – to explain, that is, why Dostoyevsky's novels, with their endless side-trails of backstory, do not really resemble most of the novels published in the late 19th century. Dostoyevsky's contemporaries – Arnold Bennett, Henry James – were forever complaining that novels such as The Idiot and The Possessed were shapeless, rambling, inchoate. Henry James memorably described The Idiot as a 'fluid pudding'. For Bakhtin, these criticisms missed the point. Dostoyevsky, Bakhtin said, did not belong to the 'monologic' traditions of western thought and western fiction. He did not, in other words, conceive of a novel as the utterance of a single (if perhaps concealed or disavowed) authoritative voice. Instead, Dostoyevsky's assumptions were 'dialogic'. A novel by Dostoyevsky, according to Bakhtin, offers 'a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices.' Truth, in Dostoyevsky's novels, is distributed, decentralised. This is the secret of their shapelessness. Wendy Erskine's sparklingly polyphonic debut novel, The Benefactors, is built on a similar insight. It is about many things – among them, the distributed nature of truth. The setting is contemporary Belfast and its hinterlands. There is no single protagonist. Certain characters receive the lavish attentions of a third-person free indirect style. Some voices – narrating short sections in the first person, scattered throughout – go unnamed. Traditional novelistic structure is eschewed. What a Hollywood screenwriter would call the 'inciting incident' doesn't occur until halfway through the book. Erskine never gives you the tiniest hint that one particular point of view, one particular character, might be preferred, might be central. 'The benefactors': in the most immediate sense the title refers to an OnlyFans-style website, 'Bennyz,' short for benefactors, on which young women do online sex work for men who send them money. Erskine's finely tuned ear for language, and for its contemporary modes of evasion and concealment, allows her to ventriloquise the jargon in which this seedy operation cloaks its inequalities: 'Tertiary factor is access to exclusive content, dictated by the beneficiary.' READ MORE On Bennyz, the men are the 'benefactors', though really, of course, we understand that it is they who are the beneficiaries – of patriarchy, one of the novel's deep subjects. Misty, the teenage girl who ends up an unwilling, and often unwitting, link between all the book's separate characters and voices, has a Bennyz account. This is held against her when, in the novel's central event, she is raped by three young men, one of them the son of wealthy parents, two of them the sons of extremely wealthy parents. [ 'I wanted to do something radical': Belfast author Wendy Erskine on her debut novel, which centres on a rape ] Summarised like this, The Benefactors might sound like one of those ripped-from-the-headlines, state-of-the-young-people, how-would-you-feel-if-this-happened-to-you sort of novels that publishers try to sell to book clubs – the sort of novel that is supposed to provoke a meaningful discussion about 'issues'. (Side-note: a good novel is itself a meaningful discussion of 'issues', aka the varieties of human experience.) But the effect of Erskine's polyphonic method is to undermine op-ed simplicities, to insist on complexity. As one of her anonymous voices puts it, 'no one should presume anything at any point about anybody'. The Benefactors is anti-presumption; it is, as Bakhtin would say, dialogic. Three characters get the lion's share of Erskine's remarkably empathetic attention. First is Frankie Levine, who grew up in care in England, worked as what is euphemistically called 'a high-end escort' and is now married to a Belfast widower, Neil Levine; Neil is vastly rich because of an 'early 1990s innovation in compression software'. Second is Bronagh Farrell, who is chief executive of a charity that helps what are euphemistically called 'disadvantaged youth'. Third is Miriam Abdel Salam, whose husband, Kahlil, now dead, ran a successful restaurant-supply company. These three women are the mothers of the three boys who rape Misty at a house party (in a scene that is evoked only indirectly, via dialogue, flashback, police reconstruction). Misty's father, Boogie, is a taxi driver; he also receives some of Erskine's lavish third-person scrutiny. In part, the novel is about how rich people mobilise to protect their class interests; in part, it is about how human connections of all kinds are mediated by class, and by the hypocritical ways in which we speak about it, even to ourselves. Erskine has published two excellent books of short stories, Sweet Home , and Dance Move . The Benefactors is a kind of short-story writer's novel. There is a sense in which it works by accreting a sequence of virtuoso short stories until critical novelistic mass is achieved. At points it's maddeningly indirect; at other points, magnificently enigmatic, persuasive, fresh. It takes a good writer to mobilise such a range of voices, moods, perceptions. It takes a very good writer indeed to offer us characters who, like actual people, speak so beautifully for themselves. Kevin Power is associate professor of English at Trinity College Dublin
Daily Mirror
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Largest-ever cast for an audiobook brought together for exciting new project
Writer Wendy Erskine's The Benefactors is one of the most hotly anticipated books of the year for 2025. Audiobook fans are in for a treat, as a cast of more than 30 narrators record this debut novel Irish writer Wendy Erskine 's debut novel has been hotly anticipated since it was snapped up by Sceptre in 24-hour pre-empt in September 2024. Centring around a sexual assault, the novel explores pushing family connections to their breaking point, the implications of wealth and class in contemporary Belfast. All of life is here in the pages of Erskine's The Benefactors, and so, it is no surprise that a polyphonic array of voices from the city appear in the audiobook, too. The main narrative is spread over five points of view, three of which are mothers whose sons have sexually assaulted a schoolfriend, Misty. Misty and her own step-father, Boogie's narratives bring the reader close to the horrors of seeking justice. But while this is a novel about a traumatic event, Erskine's style is to fuse humour and heart throughout. Publisher of The Benefactors Hodder & Stoughton commissioned its largest-ever cast for the audiobook. More than 30 narrators contributed to the audiobook, making it the largest cast to date for the publishers' audiobook production. Open casting submission sought to find voice-talent, which was then chosen by Erskine for inclusion in the audio-recording. As in the audio editions of her two short story collections, Erskine herself narrates the majority of the book. But interspersed between this through-line story of sexual assault in modern Belfast are more than 30 narrators. One of which is David Torrens, the owner of Belfast-based independent bookshop No Alibis, a stalwart in supporting the Irish writing community. The Benefactors is refreshing for its expansive narrative net it casts around the city. No city is defined by one event, and so too is Erskine's Belfast not solely focused on a sexual assault case. These narratives range from a woman seeking her long-lost son, and it going horribly wrong, to life amongst the dead in funeral parlours. Erskine told The Bookseller: 'The experience of this book moving from the page to audio was – and this is no exaggeration – wonderful. Right from the beginning, the approach was innovative and predicated on giving listeners the most authentic experience of the book. 'I was there for the recording of many of the monologues, most of which were done by people with no previous experience of that kind of thing and wow, what they brought to my words was beyond what I could possibly have anticipated.' Erskine burst onto the literary scene with her short story collection Sweet Home, published by the Stinging Fly and Picador in 2018. Her follow-up collection Dance Move was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. She has been listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. She was awarded the Butler Prize for Literature and the Edge Hill Readers' Prize. Taken as a whole, Erskine's works form a census of modern Belfast, taking in everything from conversations in hairdressers' salons to the aftermath of sexual assault.
Irish Times
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Black Pool: A memoir of forgetting - A new high in inebriated escape
The Black Pool: A Memoir of Forgetting Author : Tim MacGabhann ISBN-13 : 978-1399728232 Publisher : Sceptre Guideline Price : £18.99 The experience of sliding – or getting sucked – into the slimy dense goo of this addiction and recovery memoir by Kilkenny-born, Paris-based writer and journalist Tim MacGabhann is like heavily overdoing it on booze and drugs. It's clear that MacGabhann is highly educated and erudite in Literature with a capital L. He produces novels, short stories and poetry, and is a virtuosic literary writer. In turning his impressive skills to his own real-life version of The Inferno (Dante is a cherished author), MacGabhann has created a masterpiece in making the reader feel out of it. I mean it as a high compliment when I say that, aside from its redemptive recovery moment, The Black Pool is one long whitey from start to finish. It gave me the spins. Anyone who wants to know, without doing the damage directly to themselves, what it feels like viscerally, in your body – and the splintering hallucinogenic effects in your brain – to go for days without sleep or food whilst snorting, inhaling, imbibing and injecting every powder, pill, joint, bag of heroin and bottle you can get your hands on, should turn to this book. [ Call Him Mine: Dial M for murderous prose Opens in new window ] American poet-memoirist Mary Karr had my top prize for bringing readers into the fractured heaven and hell of inebriated escape, and the shit and vomit of both substance addiction and its detox. That honour now goes to MacGabhann. READ MORE Capturing the chaos and confusion of severe suffering, especially in the realm of mental health, The Black Pool is deftly crafted to appear 'structureless' in the traditional narrative sense. Instead it's psychedelic, episodic, non-linear, impressionistic and reflective of the raw sensitivity, existential dread and straight-up madness that seems to have plagued its author since early childhood. Subtly, without facile causality, MacGabhann suggests that what got him into trouble was the 'safety' that inebriation bestowed. Plastered, he escaped The Fear. Healing comes when sobriety, through the recovery process, replaces intoxication as MacGabhann's safe womb-home. Unapologetic in its literary allusions and exalted linguistic style, with long dense paragraphs and liberal use of poetic diction such as 'pellucid', 'ebullition', and 'tintinnabulation', The Black Pool isn't a mainstream manual on drink and drug addiction. But literary memoir readers craving transport to extreme terrains will find here the substance abuse equivalent of Ernest Shackleton's South .
BBC News
09-06-2025
- BBC News
Seven Lancashire shops sold knives to children in tests
Seven shops in part of Lancashire were found to have illegally sold knives to teenagers during undercover volunteers tried to purchase knives across 34 stores in the county as part of the Sceptre national initiative, which aims to tackle knife Constabulary said of the 34 test purchase visits, 27 passed but seven failed and are now facing further joint operation between police and trading standards also resulted in the removal of 400 knives off streets in Preston, Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire. 'Completely unacceptable' Knife surrender bins across Lancashire Police's South Division were emptied, in which 431 knives were recovered. Police said weapons included machetes, swords and flick knives. Weapon sweeps in local parks and public spaces also resulted in the seizure of an electric BB Rachel Killinger said: "We continue to carry out this work and hope that it sends out the message that there is no place for knife crime in South Lancashire."Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner Clive Grunshaw said: "Carrying or using knives is completely unacceptable, and no one should have to live in fear of such dangerous weapons in their community." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Police make 180 arrests in knife crime crackdown
Officers made 180 arrests and seized 30 bladed weapons during a week-long knife crime crackdown in West Yorkshire. West Yorkshire Police conducted 55 "knife sweeps" in parks, fields and in urban centres in search of weapons as part of the national Sceptre initiative. High visibility patrols were also deployed in 66 knife crime hotspots in the county, with police visiting 43 schools to carry out awareness campaigns. A force spokesperson said the initiative was part of its "longer term work to dissuade young people from carrying knives in the first place". During the seven days of targeted action, weapons including knives and a sword were uncovered after a search of an address in Batley. Other avenues included visits to retailers to test if they were willing to sell knives to children. One shop in Calderdale was found to be selling blades without carrying out age checks. Ch Supt Lee Berry, of the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership, said: "I hope residents have been reassured by all of the highly visible action which has taken place in our communities. "Anyone who has information about persons carrying knives or the illegal sale of them is urged to contact either their local neighbourhood policing team or the independent Crimestoppers charity." Alison Lowe, West Yorkshire's deputy mayor for policing and crime, said: "This is a vital part of our collective ambitions on knife crime here in West Yorkshire. "This dedicated awareness week offers just a window into the ongoing partnership work taking place, day in day out, to keep our communities safe." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North 'Personal responsibility' needed to tackle knives Carrying knives 'commonplace' among teens West Yorkshire Police
