Writer Wendy Erskine’s The Benefactors is one of the most hotly anticipated books of the year for 2025. Audiobook fans are in for a treat, as a cast of more than 30 narrators record this debut novel
Irish writer Wendy Erskine’s debut novel has been hotly anticipated since it was snapped up by Sceptre in 24-hour pre-empt in September 2024. Centring around a sexual assault, the novel explores pushing family connections to their breaking point, the implications of wealth and class in contemporary Belfast.
All of life is here in the pages of Erskine’s The Benefactors, and so, it is no surprise that a polyphonic array of voices from the city appear in the audiobook, too.
The main narrative is spread over five points of view, three of which are mothers whose sons have sexually assaulted a schoolfriend, Misty. Misty and her own step-father, Boogie’s narratives bring the reader close to the horrors of seeking justice. But while this is a novel about a traumatic event, Erskine’s style is to fuse humour and heart throughout.
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Publisher of The Benefactors Hodder & Stoughton commissioned its largest-ever cast for the audiobook. More than 30 narrators contributed to the audiobook, making it the largest cast to date for the publishers’ audiobook production.
Open casting submission sought to find voice-talent, which was then chosen by Erskine for inclusion in the audio-recording. As in the audio editions of her two short story collections, Erskine herself narrates the majority of the book.
But interspersed between this through-line story of sexual assault in modern Belfast are more than 30 narrators. One of which is David Torrens, the owner of Belfast-based independent bookshop No Alibis, a stalwart in supporting the Irish writing community.
The Benefactors is refreshing for its expansive narrative net it casts around the city. No city is defined by one event, and so too is Erskine’s Belfast not solely focused on a sexual assault case. These narratives range from a woman seeking her long-lost son, and it going horribly wrong, to life amongst the dead in funeral parlours.
Erskine told The Bookseller: “The experience of this book moving from the page to audio was – and this is no exaggeration – wonderful. Right from the beginning, the approach was innovative and predicated on giving listeners the most authentic experience of the book.
“I was there for the recording of many of the monologues, most of which were done by people with no previous experience of that kind of thing and wow, what they brought to my words was beyond what I could possibly have anticipated.”
Erskine burst onto the literary scene with her short story collection Sweet Home, published by the Stinging Fly and Picador in 2018. Her follow-up collection Dance Move was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime.
She has been listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. She was awarded the Butler Prize for Literature and the Edge Hill Readers’ Prize.
Taken as a whole, Erskine’s works form a census of modern Belfast, taking in everything from conversations in hairdressers’ salons to the aftermath of sexual assault.
