When John William De Forest coined the expression 'Great American Novel' in 1868, he anticipated a work which had the ability communicate the tableau of contemporary living through "the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence". Mark Twain was touted as an early contender, as was Henry James, who internalised the concept so enthusiastically that by the time he reached the later stages of his career, he wrote obsessive tracts of self-criticism that ended up pummelling his sentences into meta-commentaries on their own construction.
The term had barely been born before authors started missing the point. The ‘Great American Novel’ was meant to simplify as well as elucidate; to mirror American society back on itself so that the spirit of the nation could be recognised more easily.
Given the evident impossibility of the task, it's as well that Irish literature has not developed some lofty equivalent. Contenders for greatness are by this point so innumerable that anybody caught striving is rightfully scorned for having 'notions’. We have texts comprising a national body of work which seeks to add to the whole rather than trying to encapsulate it fully. We have great novels about Dublin, great novels about Cork, great novels about Limerick and of course, great novels about Belfast.
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Listen: Oliver Callan talks to Wendy Erskine
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine is one such great novel. Written in a mixture of third-person present tense and first-person past, the polyphonic narrative of the book belies its relatively short length. At just over 320 pages, The Benefactors has the lush feel of a Dickensian epic; one in which the city of Belfast fulfils its role as hidden protagonist of a tale spanning everything from gender politics and class to intergenerational trauma and the legacy of the Troubles.
Which isn’t to say that the book is without wit. Erskine has one of the keenest ears for dialogue in the business meaning that, even under the most horrendous circumstances, her characters can still be disarmingly funny. "Most people are stupid and do stuff without too much consideration or forethought," one character considers. "Read too deeply into individuals’ actions and you end up crediting them with too much intelligence. Way too much intelligence."
The Benefactors has the lush feel of a Dickensian epic
At its core, The Benefactors is a novel about three mothers and three sons – each from varyingly affluent backgrounds – as they use their power and influence to try and defuse the potential fallout from a sexual assault allegation. In lesser hands, such explosive material might come across as polemical or, worse, heightened to the point where its hard-won realism comes across as frenzied. Yet Erskine navigates the subject with compassion; emphasising the frailty of human endeavour such that we can’t help but be moved by the mothers’ plight even as we are disgusted by their conduct and behaviour.
If I have one quibble, it’s that the sheer volume of characters and voices at times threatens to overwhelm the integrity of the narrative. One can’t help but wonder whether Erskine’s training as a short story writer motivated the story’s fragmentary construction, littered as it is with asides separate from the main thread. Thankfully it all comes together. Erskine is a skilled medium and while The Benefactors is not the all-encompassing ‘Great Irish Novel’ that elucidates everything in the national character, it is a vital puzzle piece; one that confirms Belfast as an important site for the imagination, holding no less than the world within its sagging redbrick walls.
