Cuddy: Winner of the 2023 Goldsmiths Prize

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Several more sections follow in which we follow a young girl with her visions of a cathedral and her visitations from Cuthbert (AD995); we live in the shadow of that cathedral (Durham cathedral as we know it) with a woman (AD1346) whose husband is a famous archer but is also abusive and she falls for another, more gentle, man; we read the journal of an Oxford antiquarian (AD1827) as he travels to the north of England (which he despises) to witness the disinterment of a body in the cathedral; and we follow Michael Cuthbert in AD2019 as he cares for his mother and scratches a living as a labourer, eventually finding more stable work at the cathedral. Myers, Benjamin (2019). Beastings. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN 978-1-5266-1122-2. OCLC 1111949459. Bley Griffiths, Eleanor. "BBC announces new Shane Meadows drama The Gallows Pole, based on 'the biggest fraud in British history' ". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021 . Retrieved 24 May 2021. Benjamin Myers wins Gordon Burn Prize". Newwritingnorth.com. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014 . Retrieved 12 August 2014.

There's no doubt that Ben Myers is one of my favourite writers and I will read anything he writes. I'm always full of admiration for Ben and his ability to write something completely different every time. The Gallows Pole - Watch the trailer for Shane Meadows' new drama". www.bbc.co.uk. 19 May 2023. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023 . Retrieved 31 May 2023.

Church Times/Sarum College:

Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies. The Quietus | Features | Baker's Dozen | The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music: Benjamin Myers' Favourite Music". The Quietus . Retrieved 24 March 2023. Cuddy straddles historical eras - from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity.

Cuddyis a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England. Another high point for me was the use early on of multiple excerpts from other writers writing about St Cuthbert ,these feel like a cacophony of voices like the chatter of the Ancestors ,almost another character themselves Although the later sections (a second-person account of the construction of Durham Cathedral, a Murder in the Cathedral-type play set in the 1650s, the excavation of his remains in the 1820s, a young man and potential descendant in 2019 Durham named Michael Cuthbert) feel pretty pretentious and less than essential, it's neat that a similar female character (Edith or Edie in later sections) recurs. The aforementioned AD1827 section provides comic relief in the form of a rather caricatured academic snob from The Other Place (although it neatly twists into an effective Victorian ghost story):The book itself is divided into different historical sections, all centring around St. Cuthbert. The first focuses on the monks who carried St. Cuthbert’s coffin to Durham, the narrator is a girl who has visions and is able to talk to the saint directly, in which we get glimpses of his life. It’s worth noting that this section is told as an experimental poem. The judging panel for 2023 was made up of authors Helen Oyeyemi and Maddie Mortimer, the New Statesman’s Ellen Peirson-Hagger, and lecturer in creative writing atGoldsmiths, Tom Lee. The final section is modern day Durham and it’s about a romance between two people in their late teens/early 20’s. Recalling the humanity that was displayed in The offing, I felt this was the most heartfelt part of the book and it has elements which tie in with the previous three parts. It’s also the greatest love letter to the north he’s ever written. Cuddy is told (mainly) in four distinct parts, all written in unique styles and telling a different part of the legend and myth of St Cuthbert over more than 1,000 years in the north of England. Some parts worked for me, others really didn't. I think this is the reaction many readers will have, as every different style Myers uses is going to appeal to different people.

By the age of nine I’d ingested everything by Judy Blume. This was in the north-east during the miners’ strike – quite a masculine climate – so I was laughed at, but I didn’t care, for in Judy’s work lay all the secrets of a mysterious faraway planet: females. In Judy Blume’s work lay all the secrets of a mysterious faraway planetThe stories we tell one another are all that shall remain when time dies and even the strongest sculpted stones crumble to sand. The stories we tell one another are all that shall remain when time dies and even the strongest sculpted stones crumple to sand.’ Myers, Benjamin (3 January 2020). " 'I was half-insane with anxiety': how I wrote myself into a breakdown". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 3 January 2020– via www.theguardian.com. Cuddy, Benjamin Myers’s bewitching tenth novel, starts with a short history lesson about St Cuthbert, a 7th-century shepherd boy who became a monk after experiencing a vision. He died as Bishop of Lindisfarne in 687 on the even more remote island of Inner Farne, off the Northumbrian coast. Today, his remains lie in a shrine in Durham Cathedral, which was founded in his honour in 1093 and draws 700,000 visitors a year.