Cuddy

Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2023
Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize
Chosen as a book of the year 2023 by The Times, Guardian, Telegraph, and New Statesman

‘An epic the north has long deserved’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A sensational piece of storytelling … A singular and significant achievement’ GUARDIAN
‘Marvellous, artful, enchanted’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Cements Myers’s standing as one of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writers' I NEWS

The triumphant new novel from the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole and The Offing

Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England.

Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary, and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras—from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity.

Along the way, we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages.

And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections, and communities.