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Cuddy

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Book II tells of masons repairing the cathedral stonework in 1346 and makes the saint an actor in condemning an abusive husband. The third book offers a pastiche of an M. R. James ghost story, set in 1827, when a sceptical professor finds his confidence in science challenged at the opening of the saint’s tomb. And, in the final part, a young labourer, Michael Cuthbert, has his own encounter with the numinous when unexpectedly given work in the cathedral while his mother lies dying at home.

He was known as Cuddy. He was first a monk, next a bishop, then a hermit and later a saint. They say his body is incorruptible. They say he performs miracles. The Portico Prize For Literature. The Gordon Burn Prize. Roger Deakin Award. Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.

The final book is the story of Michael, a teenager labourer who in 2017 begins work at the cathedral among the repairs to the medieval masonry. This is Myers at his most modern and antagonistic. Take this short description of Durham’s early morning bus station, rank with the detritus of the night before: Stewart, Ethan (2 December 2020). "A Look at the '80s and '90s UK Straight Edge Hardcore Scenes" . Retrieved 7 December 2020. All in all a fabulous book one I would hope would appear on prize lists such as the Booker prize .The book defiantly classes as a literary novel What makes this book special are the characters and their first person accounts, the names and things that repeat, linking the stories from period to period, creating a sense of continuity through the centuries-the story begins and ends with a Cuthbert, and the landscape of Northern England, especially Durham and environs, few writers create the strong sense of place like Ben Myers.

This is the third work I have read by Benjamin Myers and again this one did not disappoint. It is poetry and prose, fact and fiction, passionate and discursive: a dash through over a thousand years of history. Cuddy is a shortened form of Cuthbert and refers to St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, a seventh century shepherd boy who became a monk and then prior of Melrose Abbey and finally a hermit on the island of Lindisfarne. This is an experimental novel using a variety of forms. There is indeed poetry, prose, the occasional epistle, dramatic dialogue and bibliographical references woven into it stretching from Bede to modern times (Schama). There are strands running through the book and the past haunts and informs the present. I found the poetry of Thomas Hardy to be dismal and the prose of DH Lawrence to be overwrought – all those exclamation marks. Expressing this was probably the reason I failed A-level English. But I now recognise both as visionaries who saw far beyond the England they occupied. I particularly admire Lawrence’s novellas, The Fox and The Virgin and the Gypsy. The styles of the novels differ and each reader will likely find a different part appeals. The first section is perhaps the most innovative, with prose poetry mixed with a story told from attributed quotes from various sources, ancient and modern, on which Ben Myers has drawn. The latter aspects was one of the book’s highlights for me, but the prose poetry it’s weakest element, albeit one that put Cuddy in dialogue with Letty McHugh’s brilliant Barbellion Prize winning The Book of Hours.

Myers, Benjamin (2005). Green Day: American idiots & the new punk explosion. Church Stretton: Independent Music Press. ISBN 0-9539942-9-5. OCLC 64553821. 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. In Book I, Cuddy, the dead saint, speaks to Ediva, a young woman adopted by the haliwerfolc, the “people of the saint” as their cook and helper. That community carried the relics of their saint in his wooden coffin away from Viking raids on the island of Lindisfarne until eventually Ediva helps them to find a home for Cuddy on the hill like an island in 995. The writing is so beautiful even when some of it makes little sense. As you read you initially feel impressions of the story rather than discerning any plot but as the parts move on the stories become more concrete. After finding some of the earlier parts a bit hard to fully engage with I eventually fell into the story completely and couldn’t stop reading.

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Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England. But here, in Cuddy, I feel that Myers has excelled himself. Here we have all the poetry and intensity of his writing, all the excellence of his historical fiction and it is all mixed together with some literary experimentation that makes you think Myers is really going places with his writing. This book was very close to a five star read for me and I think it is definitely a contender for the Booker Prize longlist which is announced on 1 August.

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