creativity
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W
ar continues long after the fighting has
stopped, and the world then felt as if it
were full of holes,” says Robert, the
narrator of Benjamin Myers’ novel. We meet him at
the very end of life, but in the story he tells us he is 16,
and the Second World War has just ended. Peace does
not translate automatically into prosperity: the only
thing available to Robert in abundance is time, and
one of the lessons of war is that even that can be
suddenly torn away. And so, he decides to spend the
summer after his exams walking the north of England.
Leaving his parents’ mining village near Durham,
he crosses the country to North Yorkshire, where he
pitches up in the garden of Dulcie, a woman unlike
anyone he’s met before. For one thing, she’s neither
a wife nor a widow, but a resolutely independent
woman. In her cottage overlooking Robin Hood’s Bay
(between Whitby and Scarborough), she commands
a surprisingly well-supplied kitchen and an equally
lavish library, reflecting a life spent among writers
and poets. In her company, Robert’s ideas and
experience grow far beyond the narrow scope of
a schooling intended to prepare him for pit work.
This is Robert’s education, but it will be
transformative for Dulcie too, as his arrival leads her
to a confrontation with the greatest loss – and the
greatest love – of her life. Their May-to-September
friendship matches the timescale of their story, which
starts with the urgent sap of spring and reaches its
climax in the fecund early autumn.
Myers’ previous books (three of which are being
reissued by Bloomsbury alongside The Offing) have
won him a reputation for shock, but here his subject is
love: love for place, love for nature, and the love of two
unlikely friends who change each others’ lives.The Offing
After writing several dark novels, we
discover why Benjamin Myers decided it
was time for something more upliftingWords: Sarah DitumREVIEW & INTERVIEW
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