This debut novel is astonishing in the same way that goes for prose by, for example, Colin Barrett. This is not only an Irish thing; imagine watching a great film with loads of dialogue, where the dialogue isn’t forced but is special. Here’s a paragraph example:

I suppose it’s to see if we have any mutuals, but it’s also to find out what they look like. It makes me feel more involved with it all, if I can picture it, picture them. Like, say some random guy’s got stabbed in the town, you’re just, oh, some random guy’s got stabbed in the town. But then, if you’ve got five mutuals, and if you see the pics of him with his wee baby girl at the park, the little cutie giving him a kiss, you are like, oh my god that is so, so tragic. She’s going to grow up without her daddy. When I heard them talking the other week in the shop, about that girl Misty and those three rich guys, to be fair I didn’t know what to think, I mean, Bennyz and all that, but when I checked her out online she was nowhere near as slutty looking as I thought she’d be. Like, nowhere fucking near. She actually looked friendly and somebody that wouldn’t be a real bitch, so that made me think that there was no way she could be lying or have wanted that to happen. A while ago there was this seventeen-year-old guy who was killed by the cops. They were chasing him because he was in a stolen car. I looked him up. His name was Senan. We had only one mutual, a girl I hardly know, but he liked loads of the same films as me, and the same stuff on TV. We even liked the exact same restaurant in the town. I watched all the YouTube clips he’d shared and I could see we had the total identical sense of humour. We would’ve got on brilliant, if we’d known each other. In fact, I really regret that we never met. And I’m so sorry that he died. He wasn’t a bad boy. We could’ve been good. But yeah, Misty looked friendly. Those were not good guys. The weeping cherry is, to my mind, the most elegant tree. Its double blossoms are magnificent, the masses of deep pink flowers concealing branches which, come winter, possess a bare and spectral beauty. There is one in the neighbouring front garden. Sad to say, in that house some boys are meant to have taken advantage of a young girl. But a tree of such grace, the weeping cherry. Frankie drives to the gym, already having done fifty lengths in the warm gloom of her own pool. Early August, but the sky is still charcoal. Frankie doesn’t acknowledge the young man in reception who quickly hides the energy drink he’s just opened. When his cheery good morning goes unanswered, he sets to polishing the marble panel behind him. Mrs Levine never usually says hello anyway.

The first twenty pages of the book proved hard for me to read. The last books I’ve read have all been non-fiction and easily structured so to jump into this was hard for me. But after those pages, I got in.

It’s not all about dialogue. Erskine is a very good writer. Where few authors succeed in using down-to-earth language and to also tell a story - for example, Isabel Waidner - Erskine moulds a path through language, a path through which plot occurs, is willed forth.

Some of the writing is simply just great on its own accord:

On the clean pavement outside, Frankie said under her breath, cocksuckers cocksuckers cocksuckers cocksuckers, as she passed the man and woman getting out of their chauffeured car, that woman in the hijab and her husband, going into the flagship store where the new season window was bondage luxe. That trip she also went back to see her old primary school. There were a few wizened sunflowers in the playground where they’d tried to cheer the place up. She remembered her coat hook in the hallway with a picture of a snail above it, and the words Brittany Hendricks. She never knew who Brittany Hendricks was. And Frankie never wore that flimsy top. She shoved it in the bin in the hotel bathroom and then went down to the bar and had a half-bottle of champagne. That Celia, she’d never been one of the worst anyway. Pity one of the bosses hadn’t been about.

The book is deftly, sweetly, matter-of-factly, and wonderously told. It’s a bunch of human emotions and identities laid out bare. I enjoy the fact that the story is one for the reader to uncover and unfurl, not unlike the prose written by James Joyce.

The rhythm and emotions that come off Erskine’s pages should be enough to hopefully gain a lot of readers. Books like this one are, for me, seldom seen, and this one is worth a purchase.

‘The Benefactors’ is published by Sceptre on 2025-06-19.