The Benefactors Audiobook By Wendy Erskine cover art

The Benefactors

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The Benefactors

By: Wendy Erskine
Narrated by: Wendy Erskine, Various
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'The style of Woolf but the heart of Dickens . . . impressive'
Sunday Times

From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel featuring a cast of 30 narrators 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, multi-voice presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.©2025 Wendy Erskine (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited City Life Dark Humor Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Funny Heartfelt Witty

Critic reviews

Riveting . . . a polyphonic drama of money and class . . . Erskine's eye for detail keeps us rapt (Anthony Cummins, 10 Best Debut Novelists for 2025)
Northern Ireland's most exciting novelist . . . a polyphonic narrative about Belfast, class, parenting, and the aftermath of a sexual assault, served up with an undertow of politics . . . an absorbing and clever structure that feels fresh and exciting (Susie Mesure)
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 them 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)
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)
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)
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)
A polyphonic, moving, funny masterpiece. A joy to read sentences like these from a writer as talented as this (Sinéad Gleeson, author of Hagstone)
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)
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