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The Benefactors
Wendy Erskine
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for The Benefactors
Paperback. ****THIS IS A PRE-ORDER TO BE DELIVERED ON OR AROUND THE PUBLICATION DATE IN JUNE 2025****
'A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut'
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
'So fresh, so sharp, so wry, so alive'
Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days
'I miss it already . . . What a beautiful, hilarious blast of brilliance'
Donal Ryan, author of Heart, Be at Peace
'A cast of characters so vividly drawn it feels like you've known them all your life'
Colin Walsh, author of Kala
'There's not a sentence I don't believe, or a character I don't feel something for . . . what a joy it is to read'
Michael ... Read moreMagee, author of Close to Home
From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel about intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means.
Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to eighteen-year-old boys.
Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed.
Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.
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Product Details
Publisher
Hodder Sceptre London
Place of Publication
, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Will be shipped on or around publication date
About Wendy Erskine
Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and she received the Butler Literary Award and the Edge Hill Readers' Choice Award. She edited the art ... Read moreanthology well I just kind of like it. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is a frequent broadcaster and interviewer, and works as a secondary school teacher in Belfast. The Benefactors is her debut novel. Show Less
Reviews for The Benefactors
Riveting . . . a polyphonic drama of money and class . . . Erskine's eye for detail keeps us rapt
Anthony Cummins, 10 Best Debut Novelists for 2025
Observer
A cacophony of voices meet in The Benefactors in connected and often seemingly utterly disconnected ways, all of them given Erskine's trademark attention to character, all of ... Read morethem like mini short stories of their own . . . the success of The Benefactors is the way it treads across familiar fare . . . and tackles them in surprising ways
Marie-Claire Chappet, 5 Debut Female Authors to Read in 2025
Harper's Bazaar
A truly special author - so special that you want to keep her for yourself . . . with a voice that is crystal clear and a viewpoint that takes in the world's cruelties and joys, Erskine's talent shines in The Benefactors . . . one of [Ireland's] finest contemporary writers
Aoife Barry
Irish Independent
I'm already hooked
Laura Hackett
Sunday Times
The dialogue and the descriptive prose, showing the inner and outer worlds of the novel, are extraordinary. I think this will be one of the most admired and talked-about books this year
Adrian Duncan
Irish Times
I couldn't put this book down.,Wendy has skilfully written herself out of the story completely, her hand has disappeared. As a reader, you are totally transported into these characters lives. They are living people and I missed them when I finished
Sheena Patel, author of I'm a Fan Deftly tackle[s] dark subject matters
Brendan Corbett
Sunday Times
Debut novel by the acclaimed short-story writer about class and family in Northern Ireland
The Books to Look Forward to in 2025
Guardian
Wendy Erskine's writing is inimitable - so fresh, so sharp, so wry, so alive; so much contemporary fiction feels flat and fake in comparison. In all of its glorious polyphony, The Benefactors brims with humanity. It's got snap, it's got sparkle, it's got soul. All of Belfast is here, all of life. I adored it.
Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days An excellent novel, all those voices so vivid and precise, appropriately startling at times and incredibly smart and timely on class and privilege
David Nicholls, author of You Are Here A truly remarkable novel - The Benefactors is both intimate and panoramic, full of clear-eyed compassion and wry wit, and with a cast of characters so vividly drawn it feels like you've known them all your life. This is powerful, masterful storytelling by one of the most exciting writers at work today
Colin Walsh, author of Kala The Benefactors is fantastic. It's really stuck with me since I finished it
Colin Barrett
Observer
A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut novel from the excellent Wendy Erskine. The Benefactors follows the fallout from one young woman's awful experience of the young men around her, and explores the many ways in which lies are told, perpetuated, and excused. Wendy Erskine understands young people in all their complicated awfulness and brilliance, and the way she inhabits and carries such a range of troubled voices in this novel is a wonder. We're all better off for being able to read a novel as rich as this
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13 'Wendy Erskine is off doing her own, consummate thing. The Benefactors is a novel as perfectly pitched, surefooted, and charged with feeling as her gleaming, precise stories
Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses Wendy Erskine flourishes her captivating style in The Benefactors, with a depth of insight which at times feels like epiphany. Erskine actualises riveting, propulsive humanity in this mosaic of a community, achieving a distinction of narrative empathy that gleams on the page. The prose conveys profound insight with such lightness, the characters a richness of nuance and rare humour. The Benefactors is an essential novel, and Wendy Erskine an essential novelist. It is an inspired testament to survival - I was incredibly moved by it.
Peter Scalpello, author of Limbic Books are made of words. And sentences. Of stories and sounds and of voices. The Benefactors is further proof that Erskine is a true master of all the above. There are absolutely loads of words in this book - every single one of them is well chosen - because Wendy Erskine chose them. The clue is in the title - with The Benefactors, Wendy Erskine has given us a gift
Keiran Goddard, author of I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning I found Wendy Erskine's The Benefactors to be a profound and memorable novel. Its acuity is matched by the brilliance of its prose
Adrian Duncan, author of A Sabbatical in Leipzig I miss it already. Even when they were being horrible bastards the characters were stirring my heart. Wendy evokes the grim gradations of class and wealth with such a clear eye and unerring hand. She's an incredible writer. All these voices so true and so loud in my ear. What a beautiful, hilarious blast of brilliance
Donal Ryan, author of Heart, Be at Peace A polyphonic, moving, funny masterpiece. A joy to read sentences like these from a writer as talented as this
Sinéad Gleeson, author of Hagstone The Benefactors is an astonishing novel from a writer at the height of her powers. There's not a sentence I don't believe, or a character I don't feel something for. Whole worlds are conjured, and through these worlds, a variousness of voices and perspectives that bring to life a plethora of lived experiences, often contradictory, but deeply human. Wendy Erskine is a true artist, and what a joy it is to read her
Michael Magee , author of Close to Home A novel of exquisite detail and endless humanity. Even in their darkest moments, Erskine never lets go of her characters, never lets them be anything but alive on the page. I won't soon recover, and don't really want to, from the clarity and cold power of this book
Ben Pester, author of Am I in the Right Place? What a voice. What assurance and execution. Wendy Erskine writes like nobody else. The Benefactors is a masterful, memorable, electric novel that conveys a community of people and all their dramas pitch-perfectly, seemingly without manipulation, because the craft is deft and the feeling is real as all hell
Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Alternatives The Benefactors is a novel of trauma that speaks from all of its perspectives simultaneously. In its lack of judgement, and in the redemptive joy and sadness of its telling, it is a profound work of art
David Keenan, author of This Is Memorial Device Wendy Erskine is one of the best writers working in Ireland right now and The Benefactors is all her own, astute and full of feeling
Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special Wendy Erskine is a formidable writer, an extraordinary, deliciously vivid storyteller with characters that leap off the page. The Benefactors is an outstanding debut novel, packed with sharp truths and succinct details exploring the way people judge each other, hurt each other and learn to love each other
Salena Godden, author of With Love, Grief and Fury Show Less
