The Benefactors

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
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
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
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