Oxblood
**Winner of the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award****Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2022**'Oxblood shows us that there are few places literature can't take us, if the writer is brave enough, and gifted enough' FRANCIS SPUFFORD'The master of northern noir' SUNDAY TIMES'Brilliant' DENISE MINA 'An absolute triumph' GUARDIAN'Powerful and so beautifully written' HARRIET TYCE________________________________________________________________Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985. The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby and the ghost of a murdered lover.Over the course of a few days, Nedra, Carol and Jan must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives; and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good._______________________________________________________________'If I read a better novel than Oxblood in 2022, it'll be a blinding year for fiction' JOSEPH KNOX'A propulsive, bountiful, fearless work of art' OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE'One of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times' DAVID PEACE
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This story follows the lives of three women, mother, daughter and mother ln law, living in the leaden fallout following the deaths of their Krayish husbands and fathers. Jan, the troubled daughter who sleeps around for booze, tabs, lifts home and comfort, desperate to get away. Carol the mother, broken, living out her existence while caring for her daughter's baby and Nedra who burns on a catholic flame, happily burdened with the sins and shame her family has brought upon her.
Its grim, bleak and an extremely uncomfortable read in places. Almost a masterpiece but the prose is dense and difficult to follow at times and I had to go back and re-read passages for them to make sense. If Mike Leigh & Shane Meadow had a baby, it would probably look a lot like this.
