Cuddy: Winner of the 2023 Goldsmiths Prize

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Most of all, it's about those who have come before us and how they shape who we are, how we can be guided by the past. The novel is divided into four "books", each of which follows a different character in a different century, but all characters have a connection with St. A man who lived alone on a rocky island in the North Sea, preferring the solitude and the wild birds to the company of men. The stories we tell one another are all that shall remain when time dies and even the strongest sculpted stones crumple to sand.

But, they are of course linked by a shared sense of place and a history which ultimately binds them together, if not as seamlessly as one might expect. Combining prose, poetry, play, diary and real historical events, this audacious tour de force from the author of The Gallows Pole and The Perfect Golden Circle traces the story of St Cuthbert - unofficial patron saint of the North of England - through the centuries and the voices of ordinary people. 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.But through all the changes the one voice that never leaves is that of the saintly Cuthbert who never quite seems to get his wish to be left alone to worship God.

Impressive scope and literary range to this brick of a novel about Saint Cuthbert's posthumous legacy. The symbiosis of poetry and story, of knowledge and deep love, marks out Cuddy as a singular and significant achievement. 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.Fame” would have been anathema to him as he lived a very simple, austere life and died alone on a rock in the North Sea.

I began with The Gallows Pole when I was part of the panel that longlisted the book for The Republic of Consciousness prize in 2018. Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. My admiration of Benjamin Myers' work is well known, and I think with Cuddy- because it is extremely experimental in style and approach- he has positioned himself more than ever before to be in the running for a longlist nomination on this year's Booker Prize.This type of novel is very hard to get right and I don't often love them (it's why I've never got on with the David Mitchell books I've tried for example! Myers weaves recurring symbols and images throughout his stories and the overall effect is of the unifying influence of myth, story and shared experiences across the ages, and in particular, the long, beneficent influence of the the Saxon saint at the centre of this remarkable story. My expectations were only met piecemeal, more consistently in the first half than in the second half. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Cuthbert is one of Britain’s most popular saints, widely venerated for his affinity with animals, his sympathy for ordinary working people and his association with the landscapes and holy places of the north of England.

We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. It is true to say that Cuddy is difficult to get into at first, because the first part is the story of the wandering band that carry Cuddy's body throughout North England. After an off-the-books job removing old asbestos, Michael is offered a stint of lifting and carrying at Durham Cathedral, where his personal history and unconscious heritage combine to open his eyes to a world that has previously seemed closed to him. There is a continuum which Myers weaves through an ancient folklore which challenges the powerful and defends the vulnerable.He has also published non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian , New Statesman , TLS, Caught by the River and many more. The book about the 19th century Oxford professor who comes to Durham to witness the exhumation of Cuddy was in my opinion the least strong of all, but the last book was so moving and beautiful that I need to give five stars anyway. 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. Some sections read like non- fiction (literally page after page of direct quotes from reference books), others read like fiction, others like poetry (with floating words and lines mid sentence, italicised stanzas and text getting smaller and larger) and others like pieces of source material with references unusually held within the main body of the text. Which sounds strange when you realise that the book starts on a small island near Lindisfarne with Cuthbert’s death (AD687).