
Oxblood (Hardback)
Tom Benn (author)
£16.99
Hardback
272 Pages /
Published: 28/04/2022
- 10+ in stock
'Confirms Tom Benn as one of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times' DAVID PEACE, author of the RED RIDING QUARTET
'A rich archive of bygone badness ... Benn's affection for the culture of Manchester is clear in each sentence' THE TIMES
'Powerful and so beautifully written - like David Peace wrote Alan Warner's The Sopranos and so lyrical, too' HARRIET TYCE, Sunday Times-bestselling author of BLOOD ORANGE
Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985.
The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby.
Matriarch Nedra presides over the household, which bustles with activity as she prepares the welcome feast for her grandson Kelly's return from prison.
Her grieving daughter-in-law Carol is visited by both the welcome, intimate ghost of her murdered lover, and by Mac, an ageing criminal enforcer, a man who may just offer her a real and possible future.
And then there is Jan - the teenage tearaway running as fast as she can from her mother, her grandmother, and her own unnamed baby.
Over the course of a few days, the Dodds women must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives; and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good.
A blistering portrait of a family on fire, Oxblood lays bare the horror of violence, the exile of grief, and the extraordinary power of love.
'If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note' JOSEPH KNOX, author of No 1 international bestseller TRUE CRIME STORY
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781526639486
Number of pages: 272
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
With a brutal yet compassionate honesty, Oxblood confronts the past as it was and how it shapes who we are now, and confirms Tom Benn as one of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times -- DAVID PEACE, author of THE RED RIDING QUARTET
Powerful stuff and so beautifully written - like David Peace wrote Alan Warner's The Sopranos and so lyrical, too. You don't care where it's heading, you're just happy to step into the flow and let it take you. Brilliant stuff - this is really very good indeed -- HARRIET TYCE
If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note -- JOSEPH KNOX
Reading Oxblood is a compelling and deeply unsettling experience; this is a novel that glitters with the dark energy and lifeblood of its characters -- NAOMI BOOTH
More than anything, I was enamored with Benn's audacity: to tell this raw, violent, compassionate story; to use language in such a thrilling and fresh way; to explore the dark hearts of ordinary people, and to not look way when things get messy; to be, basically, this good -- D W WILSON
The gangland novel you have never read before, the one that gets inside the minds of three generations of women whose lives are bound to the crime lords of Wythenshawe by blood, flesh, fear, desire and a hunger for possession that cannot be contained in one lifetime. In a place where Mean Streets meets Most Haunted, with his hyper-intense, hallucinogenic prose, Benn will make you believe in ghosts -- CATHI UNSWORTH
Powerful stuff and so beautifully written - like David Peace wrote Alan Warner's The Sopranos and so lyrical, too. You don't care where it's heading, you're just happy to step into the flow and let it take you. Brilliant stuff - this is really very good indeed -- HARRIET TYCE
If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note -- JOSEPH KNOX
Reading Oxblood is a compelling and deeply unsettling experience; this is a novel that glitters with the dark energy and lifeblood of its characters -- NAOMI BOOTH
More than anything, I was enamored with Benn's audacity: to tell this raw, violent, compassionate story; to use language in such a thrilling and fresh way; to explore the dark hearts of ordinary people, and to not look way when things get messy; to be, basically, this good -- D W WILSON
The gangland novel you have never read before, the one that gets inside the minds of three generations of women whose lives are bound to the crime lords of Wythenshawe by blood, flesh, fear, desire and a hunger for possession that cannot be contained in one lifetime. In a place where Mean Streets meets Most Haunted, with his hyper-intense, hallucinogenic prose, Benn will make you believe in ghosts -- CATHI UNSWORTH
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