The Offing
by Benjamin Myers
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Pub Date Aug 22 2019 | Archive Date Apr 30 2020
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) | Bloomsbury Circus
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Description
After all, there are only a few things truly worth fighting for: freedom, of course, and all that it brings with it. Poetry, perhaps, and a good glass of wine. A nice meal. Nature. Love, if you're lucky.
One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.
Staying with Dulcie, Robert’s life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.
From the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole comes a powerful new novel about an unlikely friendship between a young man and an older woman, set in the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Advance Praise
PRAISE FOR THE OFFING
A sensitive exploration of love, growing up, friendship and becoming an artist. Dulcie Piper is one of the best characters I’ve read in ages’ JENN ASHWORTH, author of The Fell
‘A deeply tender, timely and necessary story about the power of relationships across the boundaries of age, class and gender. Everyone reading this book of hope will wish that they too had met a Dulcie Piper’ LUKE TURNER, author of Out of the Woods
PRAISE FOR THE GALLOWS POLE, winner of the Walter Scott Prize and a Roger Deakin Award
‘Superb’ THE TIMES
‘Phenomenal’ SEBASTIAN BARRY
‘Benjamin Myers is one to watch’ PAT BARKER
‘Speaks to and of the northern English landscape out of which the story rises’ ROBERT MACFARLANE
‘Terrific: illuminating, gripping and deeply rooted in its setting … Vital’ AMY LIPTROT
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781526611314 |
| PRICE | |
Links
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 478738
Definitely my favourite book of the year so far. A delightful story, beautifully written. Highly recommended.
Nigel B, Reviewer
A beautiful book.
I must confess I adore books which eulogise a lost, perfect Summer. For me, 'The Offing' contained echoes of 'A Month in the Country' by J.L. Carr, and 'The Go-Between' by L.P. Hartley, which, as you probably already know, is a very good portent.
This particular Summer is shortly after the end of World War Two, and Robert Appleyard leaves his mining village to explore the world before following his father down the coalmine. When he arrives at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire he meet an old woman called Dulcie Piper. Beyond that, the less you know about the plot the better.
There's so much to enjoy in this book that I raced through it. I intend to read it again more slowly. By the end I had a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.
Wonderful.
5/5
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