Cuddy: : Benjamin Myers: Bloomsbury Publishing

Cuddy

Description

**Chosen as a book to watch out for in 2023 by The Times, Observer, Guardian, Irish TImes and Scotsman**

'Myers at his best: dark, sharp, earthy and superbly funny. Cuddy isn't a novel, it's an invocation' ROB COWEN

The triumphant new novel from the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole and The Offing

Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England.

Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, 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.

Along the way we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages.

And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections and communities.

Product details

Published	04 Apr 2023
Format	Paperback
Edition	1st
Extent	464
ISBN	9781526631480
Imprint	Bloomsbury Publishing
Dimensions	234 x 153 mm
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Benjamin Myers

Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. He is t…

It's been a while since I've reacted as emotionally to a novel ... An epic the north has long deserved: ambitious, dreamy, earthy, dark, welcoming and not ... There are readers like me who will not just enjoy this book but feel deeply grateful for its existence

FINANCIAL TIMES
A millennium-spanning polyphonic flight through history ... Myers creates characters and voices so absorbing that when the timeline jumps forward you are reluctant to leave them, only for the next protagonist to become the centre of your world until it is time to move on again. A phenomenal achievement, Cuddy is by some distance my novel of 2023

NEW EUROPEAN
A visionary epic which covers a millennium of English history and employs poetry and prose, playscript and pastiche to trace the story of St Cuthbert, the building of Durham Cathedral and the contemporary northern landscape

GUARDIAN, Best books of the year
This bold, experimental novel, which uses poetry as much as prose, won this year's Goldsmiths prize

THE TIMES, Books of the Year
A polyphonic hymn to a very specific landscape and its people. At the same time, it deepens his standing as an arresting chronicler of a broader, more mysterious seam of ancient folklore that unites the history of these isles as it's rarely taught

OBSERVER
A visionary epic which covers a millennium of English history and employs poetry and prose, playscript and pastiche to trace the story of St Cuthbert, the building of Durham Cathedral and the contemporary northern landscape.

GUARDIAN, Books of the Year 2023