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I feel the book accurately conveys depression and self loathing, as it manifests in 3 different generations of the same family, for more or less the same reasons. Each character was well developed and their stories were gripping to me. I was also sympathetic as they each descend into the worst versions of themselves. His writing style is raw, powerful, and all the other descriptions in the quotes on the cover, but it was always (for me) comprehensible. I did look up a few of the dialect words. His unconventional use of punctuation didn’t throw me like Evaristo’s, though. It is always clear what is going on and why he has chosen to break lines up etc. Tom Benn certainly reveals the very darkest side of working class life on the estate but does so with writing that is engaging and beautiful, even when describing the depths to which humanity can sink.
From Mary Gaitskill’s courageously nuanced personal essay, The Trouble with Following the Rules: “The truth may hurt, but in art, anyway, it also helps, sometimes profoundly.” A book to make me laugh? The story covers a few days and also a few decades, which is handled masterfully. The parallels are so subtle that I’m only now working some of them out. There’s filth and misery, but there’s a lot of warmth and support too.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
AnnaLisa completed her undergraduate degree in Human Services at Wingate University and her Master's degree in Counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. During her thirteen years in the Human Services field, AnnaLisa worked with children in group homes and foster care, and spent two years in private practice counseling individuals, families, and couples. 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 It’s about three generations of mothers in a crime family, living together in 1980s Wythenshawe, Manchester. The patriarchs are dead but their violent legacy traps these women together and also keeps them apart. I wanted to give expression to a place and an era, its moral canvas, and female perspectives. This meant I had to really take my time. It was rejected by two dozen publishers. What was their problem?The Charlotte Aitken Trust would like to thank the judges of this year’s award for producing such an outstanding shortlist. It is a showcase for the vitality and range of talent in a younger generation. Tom Benn’s novel Oxblood is a worthy winner, though the prize could have gone to any of the shortlist — which must have made the judges’ task especially hard. We warmly congratulate all four authors and look forward to watching their careers blossom.‘ In 2013, after all three YA novels in The Lake Trilogy were written and she had let them sit long enough, AnnaLisa took matters into her own hands and self-published the titles within just a few months of each other. Received well by readers young and not-so-young alike, The Lake Trilogy has enjoyed breakout success, selling close to half-million copies the first year. Every now and then I might hear him discussing his shift with my mother, always when they thought I was out of earshot. Tales of drunkenness, beatings, petty crime. Congratulations, Tom, on winning the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. What does it mean to you?
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