\u201cThey 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,\u201d she says, the spit of 1970s-era Debbie Harry<\/a>, with her blonde blunt fringe, her green short-sleeved sweater a perfect match with the cafe\u2019s artily peeling walls. This doesn\u2019t mean The Troubles are having a cultural moment, she adds. \u201cWith respect, we\u2019re talking about 3,500 people having been killed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The Troubles are in the deep structure of life in Northern Ireland\u2019: soldiers and civilians at a barricade in 1969 – Evening Standard<\/p>\n In her novel, \u201cthe benefactors\u201d of the title are a group of parents trying to atone for their sons\u2019 crimes. Benefactors is also the name of a sleazy website \u2013 also known as Bennyz \u2013 where men make payments, or \u201cbeneficence\u201d, to women for talking dirty and more.<\/p>\n \u201cThis place, the Ragged School,\u201d she says, pointing to the room we\u2019re in, \u201cis celebrating something good but I\u2019m also looking at the more pejorative dimension of the benefactor. The idea that the benefactor is getting something out of [their charity]. That they\u2019re possibly on a bit of an ego trip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeneficence. Sounds so fancy,\u201d thinks Misty Johnston, a central protagonist in the novel, whose Bennyz profile is based on the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Johnston\u2019s 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\u2019s actual hairstyle \u2013 \u201clike she had just got a really good curly blow dry, except someone had flatted it on top\u2026 She\u2019s hoping to make at least a little bit of cash,\u201d Erskine writes, her deadpan humour one of the book\u2019s many joys. (Her Instagram bio \u2013 \u201clady writer not on the TV\u201d \u2013 is a play on the Dire Straits song, Lady Writer. \u201cI was poking fun at my obscurity,\u201d she says, smiling.)<\/p>\n Double-edged narratives are Erskine\u2019s 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 \u201cfell into short story writing\u201d after Declan Meade, the Stinging Fly publisher, asked her to put together a collection. \u201cI was 49 and I knew this was a one-off opportunity. I tried to appear all dynamic and said, \u2018I could write you a story every six weeks.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sweet Home and Dance Move by Wendy Erskine<\/p>\n 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\u2019t appealed initially. \u201cYou know how people talk about them, the silversmithing metaphors: every word in its place, burnished. I found that really off-putting.\u201d But they were a \u201cpragmatic choice\u201d because they didn\u2019t take long. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n What they weren\u2019t was \u201crookie prep\u201d for a novel \u2013 at least not intentionally. What changed was wanting to stick with the same characters. \u201cI thought it would be gorgeous for me to get to reside in a world for longer than six or seven weeks,\u201d 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\u2019s central drama, a sexual assault.<\/p>\n The floating first voice eases us into what happened. \u201cWhen I heard them talking the other week in the shop, about that girl Misty and those three rich guys, to be fair I didn\u2019t 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\u2019d be.\u201d A second fragmented voice describes the house where the assault occurs. \u201cThe weeping cherry is, to my mind, the most elegant tree\u2026 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,\u201d Erskine writes, before turning to one of the main characters, Frankie, who is stepmother to one of the \u201crich guys\u201d named by the first voice.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want a novel I could tell as a short story. I wanted something energetic and complicated with a cacophony of voices,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt\u2019s arbitrary who writers choose to be their central characters. Often when I\u2019m reading, there will be a scene between two characters in a cafe, and I\u2019m wondering what the waiter is thinking or the person at the next table.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s 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. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had a conversation with any pupils about my writing. Worlds end up being compartmentalised.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. \u201cThey have to get approval from the exam board but I\u2019d be delighted and thrilled if they wanted to read The Benefactors,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cBut it was dreadful,\u201d she says. Now, though, she seems to be on a roll \u2013 with two film scripts, more short stories and another novel on the go, there is plenty more Erskine to come.<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t think [my stories] are young people\u2019s stories\u2019 – Rii Schroer<\/p>\n She is sanguine about finding success in her 50s. \u201cThis whole idea of the wunderkind thing, I love that, it\u2019s absolutely great. But I would query someone\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds: \u201cI think things have changed. There is more of an understanding that literature, that art in general, isn\u2019t necessarily the province of the young. I\u2019d get very excited if someone in their 60s had their first novel out. That\u2019s a wow. That\u2019s interesting. I don\u2019t think [my stories] are young people\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think this novel is a young person\u2019s novel. At the same time, that\u2019s a very seductive narrative to tell yourself, that things could only have worked out the way they\u2019ve worked out. But you can\u2019t go back.\u201d<\/p>\n The Benefactors<\/a> by Wendy Erskine (\u00a318.99, Sceptre) is out on June 19<\/p>\n![\"'The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/21cf84999404d86cd7ed0b43def23611.jpeg\"\/)
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