The Offing

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Pub Date 22 Aug 2019 | Archive Date 30 Apr 2020

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Description

After all, there are only a few things truly worth fighting for: freedom, of course, and all that it brings with it. Poetry, perhaps, and a good glass of wine. A nice meal. Nature. Love, if you're lucky. 

One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.

Staying with Dulcie, Robert’s life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.


From the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole comes a powerful new novel about an unlikely friendship between a young man and an older woman, set in the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay in the aftermath of the Second World War.

After all, there are only a few things truly worth fighting for: freedom, of course, and all that it brings with it. Poetry, perhaps, and a good glass of wine. A nice meal. Nature. Love, if you're...


Advance Praise

PRAISE FOR THE OFFING 

A sensitive exploration of love, growing up, friendship and becoming an artist. Dulcie Piper is one of the best characters I’ve read in ages’ JENN ASHWORTH, author of The Fell

‘A deeply tender, timely and necessary story about the power of relationships across the boundaries of age, class and gender. Everyone reading this book of hope will wish that they too had met a Dulcie Piper’ LUKE TURNER, author of Out of the Woods

PRAISE FOR THE GALLOWS POLE, winner of the Walter Scott Prize and a Roger Deakin Award

‘Superb’ THE TIMES

‘Phenomenal’ SEBASTIAN BARRY

‘Benjamin Myers is one to watch’ PAT BARKER

‘Speaks to and of the northern English landscape out of which the story rises’ ROBERT MACFARLANE

‘Terrific: illuminating, gripping and deeply rooted in its setting … Vital’ AMY LIPTROT

PRAISE FOR THE OFFING 

A sensitive exploration of love, growing up, friendship and becoming an artist. Dulcie Piper is one of the best characters I’ve read in ages’ JENN ASHWORTH, author of The Fell

...


Available Editions

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ISBN 9781526611314
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Featured Reviews

Definitely my favourite book of the year so far. A delightful story, beautifully written. Highly recommended.

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A simply beautiful book. Benjamin Myers captures what has been missing from modern literature for a long time. His description of English countryside, weather, people and the passing of time would be enough but there is also the wonderful poetry and a coming of age story that will stay with the reader long after the final page is turned.
Get your hands on this novel and recommend it to anyone you know who appreciates a good book.

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A beautiful book.

I must confess I adore books which eulogise a lost, perfect Summer. For me, 'The Offing' contained echoes of 'A Month in the Country' by J.L. Carr, and 'The Go-Between' by L.P. Hartley, which, as you probably already know, is a very good portent.

This particular Summer is shortly after the end of World War Two, and Robert Appleyard leaves his mining village to explore the world before following his father down the coalmine. When he arrives at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire he meet an old woman called Dulcie Piper. Beyond that, the less you know about the plot the better.

There's so much to enjoy in this book that I raced through it. I intend to read it again more slowly. By the end I had a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.

Wonderful.

5/5

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