Sangre Oscura: o Nuestras Señoras de la Buena Muerte

by Tom Benn, Olaia Rodríguez (Translator)

Suburbios de Mánchester (Inglaterra), década de los ochenta. Tres mujeres Dodds, de tres generaciones distintas, luchan por sobreponerse al legado criminal de los hombres de la familia. Jan, Carol y Nedra, atormentadas por el dolor de la violencia impuesta, persiguen su propia redención a través del deseo, los sueños y la fe. Tom Benn escribe de forma delicada y visceral una historia de comunidad en la que la desolación y la compasión se entrelazan constantemente para proyectar a las protagonistas hacia un mañana, quién sabe, mejor.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Crime

312 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2022

About the author

Tom Benn is an award-winning author, screenwriter and Associate Professor from Stockport, England. His latest novel, OXBLOOD (Bloomsbury), was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the CWA Gold Dagger, and in 2023 won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. His first novel, THE DOLL PRINCESS (Cape), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, and longlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger. His other novels are CHAMBER MUSIC (Cape) and TROUBLE MAN (Cape). He won runner-up prize in the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, and his essays and fiction have appeared in Granta and the Paris Review. He won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters. His first film, 'Real Gods Require Blood', premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival.

Reviews

[Rue Baldry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recognised a lot of this description of the ‘80s while, at the same time, the life described in it is very different from what my own was at the time. This is the tale of three women of different generations in the same family, the youngest being roughly contemporaneous with me. Teenage girls, even more than now, were seen as appropriate sex objects then. You either had to veer away from it (as I did, hiding myself in oversized men’s suits and scary goth makeup) or lean into it, as love-starved Jan does here.

Tom Benn writes well about women and their lives, the changing attitudes towards them and their expectations of life from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, and by implication, the contrast with the present day. All his characters are nuanced and he evokes some sympathy for even the worst behaved of them.

His writing style is raw, powerful, and all the other descriptions in the quotes on the cover, but it was always (for me) comprehensible. I did look up a few of the dialect words. His unconventional use of punctuation didn’t throw me like Evaristo’s, though. It is always clear what is going on and why he has chosen to break lines up etc.

The story covers a few days and also a few decades, which is handled masterfully. The parallels are so subtle that I’m only now working some of them out. There’s filth and misery, but there’s a lot of warmth and support too.

Powerful stuff. Highly recommend.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Tom Benn]

OXBLOOD, my fourth novel and first standalone, is out this April, and set in 1960s-1980s' working-class Manchester, England. 🐝 It's my first book in almost a decade, as it took nearly seven years to write. (Sorry!) It's about a great-grandmother, grandmother and teenage mother, who live in a haunted council house. Some of it is a bit like that movie GHOST, but with more chicken-in-a-basket, and less pottery.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a similar take,but done absolutely dazzingly,Little Constructions,by Anna Burns.

[thebookpinguin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly I'm sad I couldn't enjoy this more because I do understand why the writing style won some prizes... Reading a written English dialect is never the easiest but I'm usually up for it and it didn't cause me any trouble, it's accessible ! I was less thrilled by the plot though (which does not really exist as in there's a beginning and an end, it's more following these women's lives for a while) , and did not really find a way to connect with the characters until the last part. Maybe it's too far a reach for people who discover everything about Manchester, its dialect and its people through such a lense :(

Also I got confused for a while regarding who was a ghost and who was not dead yet, which can be quite... confusing ?

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given the rapturous reviews i was expecting a great deal from this story about three generations of women and the unpleasant men they were stuck with.

The lives of the women are awful, the language is exalted and there was the weird sense for me that this was all a bit of poverty porn. Lives of hopelessness put at the service of some lyric prose rather than the prose put at the service of exalting the lives. Still much is beautifully written and I will certainly remember the story pretentiousness and all.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, heart-wrenching and heart warming at the same time, it was a compelling and fascinating read.
The author did an excellent job in delivering this emotionally charged, entertaining, and moving story.
The characters are fleshed out and relatable, the historical background is vivid.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Jen Banks · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

It’s rare that I start a book and don’t see it through to the end, but I couldn’t finish this. The premise was brilliant - matriarch and female members of a dying Manchester gang family, but the writing style was jarring. It’s set in my neck of the woods, but even so the accented writing was too much.

[Aria Harlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, it was well written with a beautifully written and emotive storyline and well developed chararacters. this book is so powerful and deals with some hard hitting issues in a sensitive way. I couldn't put this book down.

[Martin Ungless · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this! Oxblood is magnificent. Benn's language isn't just rich, it is sticky and visceral. His characters think, speak and act with their guts, literally ventriloquizing the poetry which
the author has hand-shaped from the language of 80s Wythenshawe. Genius! Genius! Genius!

[Mary Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking excellent. desperately sad and beautifully written. going up there as one of my favourite books.

[Raquel B. R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Da igual el tipo, la forma o la razón, el hecho es que las consecuencias de la violencia, el odio y la criminalidad siempre acaban recayendo sobre los hombros de los que menos culpa tienen, ya sean hombres, mujeres o niños. Sobre todo en mujeres o niños.

Nedra, Carol, Jan. Tres mujeres, tres generaciones, un mismo apellido y el mismo pozo sin fondo. Nos encontramos en los suburbios de Manchester en la década de los ochenta, en medio de una familia, los Dodds, famosa por el currículum delictivo de sus varones pero, ¿qué pasa con ellas?

Tres mujeres intentando sobreponerse a este legado familiar, atormentadas, resignadas en algunos momentos y ansiosas de buscar su propia redención en otros, cargadas de deseos y de sueños trucados.

Tres mujeres y tres puntos de vista distintos de una misma situación. Una historia visceral, directa, sin cortapisas, pero a la vez conmovedora, delicada no en su forma pero si en su mensaje, en su trascendencia, en su fondo.

Un relato demoledor por la realidad que refleja, por la injusticia que supone vivir una vida condicionada por los actos de los demás, el ser quien te ha tocado ser y no quién eres realmente, el querer huir y no poder, o no saber, el atreverte a elegir tu propio camino arriesgándote a elegir uno incluso peor que el que te ha sido marcado.

Una historia real que se clava, que te llega, verosímil, intensa. Tres mujeres con las que se conecta, que conmueven y atormentan.

Un relato fresco, ágil y dinámico cuyo ritmo obliga a seguir leyendo, no hay descanso; una historia intensa que hace que la lectura resulte una experiencia de la misma magnitud.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The blurb in the shop left me expecting a crime novel, whereas what I read was a fantastic exploration of the minds of 3 women with extreme emotional baggage, told through a mixture of flashbacks and a relatively routine but somehow gripping turn of events spanning a couple of days in the present (1985).

I feel the book accurately conveys depression and self loathing, as it manifests in 3 different generations of the same family, for more or less the same reasons. Each character was well developed and their stories were gripping to me. I was also sympathetic as they each descend into the worst versions of themselves.

My one slight criticism is that the setup (whilst important to give context to the characters) phase of the book laboured the point a little. Without giving anything away, I'll just say I pushed myself through the first half of the book a little bit, but read the second half more or less in one sitting.

Definitely give it a go if you like the sound of it but don't go in expecting a book specifically about crime in 80s Manchester because that's not what you'll get - it's more a story of a broken home.

[Ricky McAllister · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were lots of things to admire here. The period detail was evocative and there was a real poetry in the gutter atmosphere throughout. Benn is clearly a very accomplished writer.

I did find it a little inaccessible and hard to warm to. The first half I also found a little bit of a slog, without seeming to go anywhere in either character or story. The second half maybe moved things on from there and so was a slight improvement.

A novel easier to admire than love, for me anyway.

[Linnéa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly well-written, but just not my type of story. The non-linear narrative occasionally confused me. I did like the inclusion of lots of slang, even though I didn't always understand it. Simply a ship passing me in the night.

[Andi Chorley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Northern noir set in South Manchester especially Wythenshawe. The story takes place over a few days but also a few decades and the writing is raw and powerful. Recommended.

[Laura Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those rare occasions where you feel you’ve read something truly unique, both in terms of story and writing style.

[Richard Drinkwater · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled with this book. The thing I missed was context.

[Tracy Davies-jones]

This was a great book. A family in the bleakness of 80’s Manchester, three generations of Dodds women and the effects that the Dodds men had on their lives. This a bleak story about love, survival, complacency and depression. Women married to the Dodds so full of hope and so young, their lives spoilt by the Dodds husbands and the way they treat them. Any happiness beaten out of then from an early age whilst being left to rear their children! Nedra the matriarch, church going, righteous and proud of the Dodds men despite the atrocities they threw at her and other people. Carol the daughter in law married to Sefton Nedras golden boy but a jealous, wanna be like his father bully. The only chance Carol has of happiness taken away early in and is then left to survive in a pool of depression and loss of hope. Her daughter Jan a tear away 15 year old, a product of unhappiness and such loathing unloved and uncared for. She craves love with men and boys and gets this with her quick, nasty, at times paedophilic ways. Any attention being better than no attention, wise beyond her years but still the little girl who just needs love and nurturing. A mother now at 15 is not mature enough to know that the black baby in it’s cot, unnamed, ashamed and unwanted is the one figure in her life that can give her that unconditional love and change her life! There are racial elements in this that madd me squirm, paedophilic parts that I got but were just so wrong but this story telling was gripping, real and a tug of my emotions! I didn’t score five stars purely because I think the book could have done more and at times I felt a little list by the ramblings and wasn’t sure what was going on. Overall though this a good read!

[Nick Gummerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 proper stars for an absolutely wonderful book, I loved it, brilliant imagery of a Manchester not long passed.... past?

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but I found the style of writing a bit off putting, it took me a while to realise what was actually going on. A real shame as the setting and characters had so much potential.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gritty - but not always grim - vivid, compelling and very well-crafted. As someone who lived in Manchester through the 1980's I found the characters and their speech to be instantly recognisable; they accurately reflect the attitudes of that time and place, yet are described without cliche and with a great deal of thought. The author has a highly original style but never sacrifices readability to it. The only thing I didn't like about Oxblood was the cover; I didn't want the book itself to end.

[Lauren C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was like a postcard from Manchester, with place names, slang, sayings and a general up north vibe. However, for a “slice of life” book, it felt a bit repetitive and pointless. The character development seemed to go nowhere despite the characters actions changing, and the story itself felt a bit redundant, but I did enjoy the Mancunian spirit.

[Pam Wright Alfie Blue Puss In Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn’t really for me I couldn’t get on board with the authors writing style it was a bit off beat for the type of crime noir I usually like. I felt it was too short to form a proper plot to develop and create the tension I was looking for. It was well written in parts and at times quite poetic.
I think fans of Martina Cole would enjoy this and. I did liked the strong female characters, I would go as far to say the characters make it more a character lead novel which is not a bad thing, I liked the setting, Manchester in the 80’s.
Longer with a bit more development in the characters and plot could have raised it to three stars for me.
Thanks for the ARC in exchange for the review

[Simon Drummond · Rating 1 out of 5]

Struggled to get into this at any point as it was unclear what was happening throughout. The chapters jump around from different times and perspectives without being fully clear about when it is set or who is speaking until about a page later and even then nothing really happens. An example of this is that the son comes out of prison at the start and is then arrested about 4 chapters later, but it’s never made clear if that was a description of his original arrest or not. So you’re left wondering whenever he re-appears if he’s been let out again or if this is a time before he was arrested. Stuck with it as I’d seen there was a twist but having finished the book I couldn’t actually tell you what the twist was.

[Raheel Khokhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary. A masterpiece? Perhaps. Only 245 pages but it took me a couple of weeks to read because the writing is SO good you can taste it. I'm not surprised it took Benn 8 years to complete the novel, the sentences, the language, the vernacular is so dense and brutally brilliant I found myself rereading many passages just so I could savour the images that came to mind. As a born and bred Manc who came of age in the late 70s/80s so much of this book is memoria.
However this isn't a celebration of Spangles, Look-In or Jim'll Fix It. It fixes its gaze on 3 generations of put-upon women living in the dregs of Wythenshawe. Working class to the bone. Trying to escape their destinies. Nothing is held back. This book will linger in my mind for a long time.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 1 out of 5]

unfortunately this book just didn’t work for me. i finished it because i’m stubborn but i didn’t really enjoy it.

i couldn’t find any flow or get to grips with what was happening throughout the novel. this could be down to me but i just couldn’t get my head around it.

[Jessamy Beeson-Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moments where I really enjoyed this, but I think it’s clear the three main female characters were written by a man..

[Milly Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winner of this year's Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Set in 1980s Wythenshawe, Manchester, this is the story of three women, three generations of the Dodds family, a family that once ruled Manchester's underworld. This is not a book about crime, but a story of women broken by and haunted by violence. These women entered their marriage with hope but were ruined by their husbands, their hopes beaten out of them and their only role to bear children. The men are now dead and the women are all that remain of this once powerful family. The matriarch, Nedra, now finds that her importance in the community is falling away and her life is being the childminder to the local kids, all products of broken homes and all lacking a stable home life. Her granddaughter, Jan, had a child at fifteen, is having an affair with her English teacher and uses sex to get anything she wants from the local lads. Unable to get any affection from home, she uses her body to feel something, anything. Two women - years apart - but written with realism. You see these women. In-between there is Carol, Nedra's daughter-in-law and Jan's mother. She is an interesting character and seems to be the holder of the backstories - the stories of Nedra's husband Jim and her own husband Sefton. And the link to Vern, her one-time lover who now visits her every night as a ghost hungry for sex. These supernatural couplings are slightly strange, but they serve a purpose to allow us to see how being married into Dodds family affected Carol, the legacy that it has left her with. Though they could also just be read as expressions of grief. There is no real plot, there are flashbacks and the writing style is original and powerful, but there are some revelations. An enjoyable read and 1980s Manchester is vividly drawn.
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[Jon Kenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much about this I absolutely love. The stuff that may well have turned some readers off, did not turn me off. The Northern dialect did not turn me off, in fact I really liked it (I'm a Northerner so I s'pose I have an advantage there). I love that the story is deeply rooted in place and time(s). I also love the supernatural elements, where some readers might baulk. Overall this is a beautiful, poetically written masterpiece. But that's where I struggled; that word 'poetic'. The writing is gorgeous in its poetic portrayal of a place that's warm, vibrant, grim, brutal and infuriating all at the same time. But, for me, the poetry can make the writing dense. Not in a bad way; I've rarely read such skilful, emotional writing. It holds back the story though. When I'm reading a poem I want to take my time and luxuriate in the language. When I'm reading a novel, I want a bit of that yes, but mostly I want to get on with the story. This is particularly a problem when the story is a good one. And this one is! Towards the end I was just yearning for the bloody story to move! The denseness of the writing (evocative as it is) held up the pace and confused me as to what exactly was going on. Maybe it's me. I have the same problem with musicals ("Another song? Damn it the story was just getting interesting!"). I ended up longing for simple sentences like 'she closed the door' or 'he got on the bus' just for a break and to make a bit of progress. And that's a shame because there's some of the best, most innovative writing that I've ever read in this.