Cuddy: Winner of the 2023 Goldsmiths Prize

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Following the Battle of Dunbar three thousand Scotsmen were imprisoned in the Cathedral, 1700 of them died.

The novel is divided into four "books", each of which follows a different character in a different century, but all characters have a connection with St. It's about centuries ticking past and how stories are told and passed down, how mystical the human experience really is.So much so that in one short section that is presented to us as a play, the cathedral has a speaking part. And I look forward to Myers next work which sounds even more innovative, “a novella set in Berlin in 1971, and it explores both the idea of public performance and challenges what actually even constitutes a ‘novel’ these days.

It is probably Myers' most ambitious and experimental book (with the possible exception of The Gallows Pole) and it is a very enjoyable and stimulating read. The voice of the saint remains with us throughout, there to receive the prayers of those who believe in his legend and longevity. When his wife, Eda, meets Francis Rolfe, one of a team of masons engaged in repairing and enhancing Durham Cathedral’s decorative stonework, what occurs will live on in the stone.

As the book moves from 687 to 2019 in centuries-long leaps, there are less obvious themes which run throughout. But I can recognise that this is a step up from what Myers has written before, and that it will bring him to the attention of people who perhaps haven't read his work before. It says something about an author’s exceptional ability when he can pull off a multi-voiced epic about a Seventh Century Scottish-Northumbrian holy man and saint, set in five different periods of history from AD687 to 2019 and keep the reader’s interest to such a degree that said reader can’t bear to be parted from the (lengthy) book and reads it in three days.