Latest news with #TheBenefactors
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Northern Ireland's most exciting novelist – who's making her debut in her 50s
To her pupils, she is still Ms Erskine, head of English at a Belfast secondary school. But a mid-life foray into fiction writing now means Wendy Erskine has a second identity as one of Northern Ireland's hottest new authors. So instead of discussing a Greek myth with a Key Stage 3 class or something by Tennessee Williams with her A Level students, Erskine, who is 57, is in London to discuss her own debut novel. The Benefactors is a polyphonic narrative about Belfast, class, parenting, and the aftermath of a sexual assault, served up with an undertow of politics. 'The Troubles is in the deep structure [of the book]. To me, it is in the deep structure of life in Northern Ireland,' she tells me, sipping a coffee in the basement cafe at The Ragged School, a Victorian free school set up by Dr Barnardo. Her novel is the latest in a wave of cultural lodestones drawing attention to Northern Ireland. She reels off a list, which ranges from TV dramas such as Blue Lights and Derry Girls to the controversial rap trio Kneecap, notorious for their inflammatory political messages. Books such as Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing, Anna Burns's Milkman and Michael Magee's Close to Home also come to mind. 'They have all been instrumental, one way or another, in developing a greater awareness of the place in all its strangeness and sadness and energy and beauty,' she says, the spit of 1970s-era Debbie Harry, with her blonde blunt fringe, her green short-sleeved sweater a perfect match with the cafe's artily peeling walls. This doesn't mean The Troubles are having a cultural moment, she adds. 'With respect, we're talking about 3,500 people having been killed.' In her novel, 'the benefactors' of the title are a group of parents trying to atone for their sons' crimes. Benefactors is also the name of a sleazy website – also known as Bennyz – where men make payments, or 'beneficence', to women for talking dirty and more. 'This place, the Ragged School,' she says, pointing to the room we're in, 'is celebrating something good but I'm also looking at the more pejorative dimension of the benefactor. The idea that the benefactor is getting something out of [their charity]. That they're possibly on a bit of an ego trip.' 'Beneficence. Sounds so fancy,' thinks Misty Johnston, a central protagonist in the novel, whose Bennyz profile is based on the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Johnston's Bennyz outfit is a white blouse with a lace collar and black satin ribbon bow to stand out from the booty-short-and-bra-top-wearing girls, although she draws the line at copying the Victorian poet's actual hairstyle – 'like she had just got a really good curly blow dry, except someone had flatted it on top… She's hoping to make at least a little bit of cash,' Erskine writes, her deadpan humour one of the book's many joys. (Her Instagram bio – 'lady writer not on the TV' – is a play on the Dire Straits song, Lady Writer. 'I was poking fun at my obscurity,' she says, smiling.) Double-edged narratives are Erskine's forte, something she discovered by chance in 2015 after using her free Monday afternoons to take a six-month fiction workshop run by Dublin-based Stinging Fly magazine. She 'fell into short story writing' after Declan Meade, the Stinging Fly publisher, asked her to put together a collection. 'I was 49 and I knew this was a one-off opportunity. I tried to appear all dynamic and said, 'I could write you a story every six weeks.'' The upshot, Sweet Home, which was set in east Belfast and published in Ireland by Stinging Fly Press in 2018, was a searing success. A second, equally lauded, collection, Dance Move, followed in 2022. Short story writing hadn't appealed initially. 'You know how people talk about them, the silversmithing metaphors: every word in its place, burnished. I found that really off-putting.' But they were a 'pragmatic choice' because they didn't take long. 'It's a very democratic form. If you have stuff going on, there is a satisfaction in getting a short story completed. And I absolutely adored it. I realised how flexible they are.' What they weren't was 'rookie prep' for a novel – at least not intentionally. What changed was wanting to stick with the same characters. 'I thought it would be gorgeous for me to get to reside in a world for longer than six or seven weeks,' she says. Her familiarity with the short story form also pushed her to try something different with her novel, which features cameos from 50 different voices reacting to the book's central drama, a sexual assault. The floating first voice eases us into what happened. 'When I heard them talking the other week in the shop, about that girl Misty and those three rich guys, to be fair I didn't know what to think, I mean, Bennyz and all that, but when I checked her out online she was nowhere near as slutty looking as I thought she'd be.' A second fragmented voice describes the house where the assault occurs. 'The weeping cherry is, to my mind, the most elegant tree… There is one in the neighbouring front garden. Sad to say, in that house some boys are meant to have taken advantage of a young girl,' Erskine writes, before turning to one of the main characters, Frankie, who is stepmother to one of the 'rich guys' named by the first voice. 'I didn't want a novel I could tell as a short story. I wanted something energetic and complicated with a cacophony of voices,' she adds. 'It's arbitrary who writers choose to be their central characters. Often when I'm reading, there will be a scene between two characters in a cafe, and I'm wondering what the waiter is thinking or the person at the next table.' It's an absorbing and clever structure that feels fresh and exciting, rather like Erskine, who makes me long to be re-taking A-level English provided I get her as my teacher. Have any of her students read her work? She laughs. 'I don't think I've ever had a conversation with any pupils about my writing. Worlds end up being compartmentalised.' In a quirk of the Northern Irish exam system, which may help to account for their superior share of top grades compared with England and Wales, students can choose two of the novels they study for A-level English. 'They have to get approval from the exam board but I'd be delighted and thrilled if they wanted to read The Benefactors,' she says. Erskine, who is married with two grown-up children, admits trying her hand once before at writing something long-form, when she was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, teaching English after studying at Glasgow University. 'But it was dreadful,' she says. Now, though, she seems to be on a roll – with two film scripts, more short stories and another novel on the go, there is plenty more Erskine to come. She is sanguine about finding success in her 50s. 'This whole idea of the wunderkind thing, I love that, it's absolutely great. But I would query someone's judgement, to be honest, if they thought that the most exciting fiction was more likely to be written by someone under 35. Like, why? But neither do I think that older writers have universally achieved Zen wisdom. It just depends on the individual.' She adds: 'I think things have changed. There is more of an understanding that literature, that art in general, isn't necessarily the province of the young. I'd get very excited if someone in their 60s had their first novel out. That's a wow. That's interesting. I don't think [my stories] are young people's stories. 'I don't think this novel is a young person's novel. At the same time, that's a very seductive narrative to tell yourself, that things could only have worked out the way they've worked out. But you can't go back.' The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine (£18.99, Sceptre) is out on June 19
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
10 books for June: Michelle McDonagh, Bill Clinton, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and more
The First Gentleman, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (June 2) Former US president Bill Clinton reunites with bestselling author James Patterson for this novel. Here, the first female president's husband is accused of murder. The world thinks he's guilty. How far will he go to prove his innocence? Eat The Ones You Love, by Sarah Maria Griffin (June 3) Writer and podcaster Sarah Maria Griffin brings a twisted, tangled story about workplace love affairs and plants with a taste for human flesh in her latest book. Think Little Shop of Horrors in a crumbling Irish shopping centre. Our Song, by Anna Carey (June 5) This is the first book for adults from award-winning novelist and scriptwriter Anna Carey. Tadhg and Laura used to be in a band together. Twenty years later she gets an email that could change everything: Tadhg wants to finish a song they started writing together. Some of this is True, by Michelle McDonagh (June 5) Cork crime writer Michelle McDonagh stays close to home in her latest book, where, on an icy morning in January, a young tourist's body is discovered at the bottom of the Wishing Steps at Blarney Castle. Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid (June 5) Search #BookTok for recommendations and Jenkins Reid shows up time and time again. The author of Daisy Jones and the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo returns with a love story set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle programme. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, by VE Schwab (June 10) A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family's estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. VE Schwab is the bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and her latest publication is a genre-defying novel. Thirst Trap, by Gráinne O'Hare (June 12) Three girls are beginning to unravel in their Belfast flat as they grieve the tragic death of their friend. Frequently mentioned as one of 2025's most exciting publications, Thirst Trap is a story about friendships that endure through the very best and the very worst of times. My Friends, by Fredrik Backman (June 19) Backman writes a deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger's life 25 years later. Backman, who lives in Sweden, is the bestselling author of A Man Called Ove. The Benefactors, by Wendy Erskine (June 19) The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland from Wendy Erskine in her debut novel. Erskine is a prolific short-story writer, with her collection Sweet Home published in 2018. Hunger by Choi Jin-young (June 26) This Korean bestseller details the cannibalistic relationship between a woman and her deceased boyfriend. Jin-young's novel became a cult classic sleeper hit that sold 350,000 copies and now has been translated into English by Soje.
