Oxblood

WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGERThis was her life. Her house. Her dead men.

Her shadow unstitched, left there like dirt on her clean netting as she brewed up and went back to bed, wondering when the last living Dodds man would die.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 redemptive powers of love.'

Confirms Tom Benn as one of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times' -- DAVID PEACE'Prose like poetry...I really felt like I needed to savour each sentence. An utterly unique voice, telling a working-class story that resists the usual clichés' -- OTEGHA UWAGBA'A propulsive, bountiful, fearless work of art' -- OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE'Oxblood shows us that there are few places literature can't take us, if the writer is brave enough, and gifted enough' FRANCIS SPUFFORD'Powerful stuff and so beautifully written...

this is really very good indeed' -- HARRIET TYCE'Brilliant' -- DENISE MINA'Rendered with such care and specificity that it feels wholly original...a rich, dark, atmospheric family saga that contains so much buried love and anger and grief and sexual jealousy and bitter disappointment. I emerged from it exhilarated' -- JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR'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'This is a novel that glitters with the dark energy and lifeblood of its characters' -- NAOMI BOOTH'A remarkable galvanization of a time and a place, its style and substance so rooted in one another it is impossible to imagine it being written by anyone else. A story that seeps into you, sentences turned to catch the light like night eyes.

A living thing' -- DOMINIC NOLAN'One of those rare books where place and time are conjured so effortlessly, the cast of characters drawn with so much ease and grace' -- MONA ARSHI'What a voice Tom Benn has got' -- ANDREW HOLGATE'a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental..Wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous.

It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction -- STIG ABELL'More than anything, I was enamoured 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 away 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'An astonishing piece of work. Captures the stories of three women from an underworld family with ferocious honesty and compassion.

Audacious writing - visceral, rich and intense. Unforgettable characters haunted by violence and grief.