

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.
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.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781526631503
Number of pages: 464
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'A writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent'. -- Alex Preston
'Here is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they are.' - The Times
'No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Benjamin Myers. And it's hard to think of many people who can write with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art.' -- Wendy Erskine
'Shot through with a romantic, even mystical radicalism of the kind that William Blake would have approved of.' - The Daily Telegraph
'What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... Gorgeous.' -- Max Porter
'Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own.' -- John Mitchinson
'A powerful new voice.' - The Guardian
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“A monumental work”
Benjamin Myers gets better and better. I found his earlier novels rather bleak, but he then wrote The Offing, a wonderfully sensitive coming-of-age novel set on the Yorkshire coast. In Cuddy he has made a quantum leap... More
“A successful blending of forms and structures”
Cuddy is an amalgamation of writing done at different times and places by Myers.
The common thread is a history of St Cuthbert and Durham cathedral but within that we have experiments with form and structure....
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“A wonderful evocation of the Northern Saint Cuthbert”
I wasn’t sure what to think when I started reading this book but I knew the author and was interested in the subject matter.
Myers transports us back through time to the people whose lives were touched by Cuthbert...
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