The Young Accomplice

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Benjamin Wood is building a sublime body of work. This masterful, suspenseful novel is his best yet. It swallows you up. I love it. ​ David Whitehouse, author of About A Son A resounding achievement . . . Rich, beautiful and written by an author of great depth and resource' - Guardian, on The Ecliptic His latest work The Young Accomplice was published by Penguin Viking in June 2022. It was selected as one of the books of the year by The Times ​& Sunday Times, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Irish Times, and others. A serialised version of the novel was broadcast as a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime in April 2023. In the summer of 1952, Joyce and Charlie Savigear are waiting on a railway platform in the quiet English countryside. The siblings have just been released from borstal to start a new life as apprentices at Leventree, an architecture practice with a difference. Benjamin Wood's The Young Accompliceis a treat for those who have followed his career ... Its greatest quality is its understanding of how characters exist only in relation to one another. Each pairing gives us a new angle, and added depth, with the clarity of a diamond. Wood's daring narrative decisions show he hasn't lost the old spark, but has just added to it with his new repertoire. What, it asks, are the opportunities available to someone who wants to leap clear of their wrong beginnings? John Self, The Critic Best Books of the Year 2022

Set mainly over the second half of 1952, but with brief forays into the years before and after, the narrative follows the siblings after they are released from borstal and taken on as architectural apprentices by Florence and Arthur Mayhood. They live and work together on the Surrey farm where the Mayhoods’ idealistic practice is based: tilling lessons in the morning; draughting classes in the afternoon. A happy time is had for a while, until Mal Duggan reappears. With deceptive ease, the books weaves elements of crime, mystery, love story and coming of age . . . a well-wrought novel whose pleasure is in each careful scene, moment and sentence Irish Times His most original [novel] yet . . . The Young Accomplice has already been compared to Thomas Hardy novels and there are echoes of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in the story of a vulnerable young woman whose past catches up with her. Wood is also wonderful on the intricacies of love and architecture as a means of enriching people's lives. It's a novel that feels as if it has been imagined with slow and tender care - and I suspect it will be cherished by readers for a long time Sunday Times Exhilarating , earthy, cerebral, frank and unflinching . . . A masterfully paced and suspenseful read' - Independent, on The Ecliptic

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And critics Johanna Thomas -Corr and Max Liu join Chris to discuss their richly varied recommendations for summer reading. MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) This satisfyingly old fashioned- feeling novel from a youngish author strikingly conveys its 1950s rural setting, and has a grim pull of foreboding . . . Benjamin Wood's perspective-shifting novel weaves elements of An involving tale of revenge and responsibility, which, while it devastates, also tells us that new lives can be built among the ashes' FT The lives we design versus the lives we live is a central dichotomy in the book, which tells of two siblings, just released from borstal and assigned to take up residence and apprenticeship with a couple in the English countryside. It’s the 1950s and reverberations of the war linger (one character lost an arm on duty), but life must go on. The couple’s project is a Utopian one: they wish to replenish their farmland so it can provide subsistence as they run their architecture practice/apprenticeship. Will the siblings, and the couple, succeed in improving their lives by design, or will their foundations prove too unstable? Magwitch-like criminals

A novel about architecture, ambition, crime and guilt. It takes place in the early 1950s, and is set mainly on the Surrey farm where Arthur and Florence Mayhood are attempting to set up both an architect’s practice and a self-sufficient commune. Their inspiration is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Wisconsin, but their community has only two members, brother and sister Joyce and Charlie Savigear, young offenders recently released. Through dramatic time jumps and a sure ear for dialogue, Wood builds up convincing levels of psychological depth in all the main characters. Arthur is saintly in his determination to see good in everyone, and to rise above a major disability. Florence is his loyal, pragmatic companion, prepared to act also as driver and mechanic. Charlie is determined to overcome all obstacles to make it as an architect, and such is his practicality and willingness to learn, that we suspect he will. His older sister Joyce, six foot tall and immensely strong, has however come to the commune with hidden motives. The Savigears were not the scrawny pair she [Florence] was expecting. Standing half a yard from one another in the fug of their own cigarettes, they had the restful attitude of two navvies on a lunch break. (p. 24) Blown away by A Station On The Path To Somewhere Better . . . Dark and disturbing, but wise, moving and beautifully written. Am immediately going to seek out his other books now. What a writer Richard Osman on A Station On The Path To Somewhere Better Indeed, Wright’s words provide the preface: “To see a failure changed to a success – there is what I call Education.” As a portrait of youthful mistakes and adult blindness, The Young Accomplice is both tender and cutting; it is often subtle and occasionally thrilling. If, at times, the mechanics of plot carry us away from the more grounded human emotions Wood has cultivated, it is no great matter. Some lessons are just worth hearing.The truth is revealed sparingly, until we suddenly find ourselves no longer reading a psychological thriller but an action thriller, reminiscent of old British films.

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Wood is a seriously talented writer, able to enter the minds of his characters with eerie precision. The Young Accomplice is an involving tale of revenge and responsibility, which, while it devastates, also tells us that new lives can be built among the ashes FT Siblings Joyce and Charlie Savigear are 'rescued' from their Borstal sentences by married architects Arthur and Florence Mayhood, who run their architectural practice from a Surrey farm, which they plan to be self-sufficient - and they also seek a couple of apprentices to work with them, both on the farm and in their architectural practice. The Mayhoods are both keen followers of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his Taliesin community in Arizona and Arthur, having ended up in Borstal himself when he was a teenager, wishes to give Joyce and Charlie the chance to make something of themselves. Both have been selected following a drawing competition run in conjunction with the various Borstals by Arthur and Florence, where they both showed promise. His debut The Bellwether Revivals (2012) was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won France's Prix du Roman Fnac. Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in northwest England. He is the author of four acclaimed novels.His second novel The Ecliptic (2015) was shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Chris Power talks to Benjamin Wood about his novel The Young Accomplice. Set in 1952 the novel explores how Frank Lloyd Wright’s modernist vision inspired a married couple to set up their own architectural office in rural Surrey, where they offer a creative education and opportunity to orphaned siblings fresh out of borstal. His third book A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better (2018) was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature and the CWA Gold Dagger Award. But, two years later, she is waiting on a railway station in the tranquil English countryside. It's the summer of 1952 and she and her younger brother Charlie have just been released from borstal. Another fresh start awaits - but can Joyce ever outrun the darkness of her past? Exhilarating, earthy, cerebral, frank and unflinching . . . A masterfully paced and suspenseful read Independent, on The Ecliptic

While Joyce (the elder of the two) is rather sly and outspoken, Charlie is much quieter – a diligent young man who seems eager to learn. He responds well to the expectations set by the Mayhoods, contributing to the farm labour alongside his architectural training. In truth, there is something of the young Arthur in Charlie Savigear, a gentleness combined with curiosity and determination, qualities that Florence detects and hopes to nurture. The atmosphere of 1950s Britain is well evoked – all Woodbines and pints of mild – and the complicated relationship between the Mayhoods and the Savigears is nicely developed and affecting, with one especially sharp moment when Arthur looks afresh at the troubled Savigears “as though he’d recognised a basic failure in his sums”. It is a pity, though, that this story of messy human miscalculations should resolve so magically and undeservedly, as it does, in a gilded New York hotel room, in the presence of a saintly Frank Lloyd Wright. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. When sixteen-year-old Joyce Savigear absconds from work to go out with a man she barely knows, she hopes a new, exciting life is just beginning.

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A treat . . . Wood's daring narrative decisions show he hasn't lost the old spark, but has just added to it with his new repertoire. What, it asks, are the opportunities available to somoen who wants to leap clear of their wrong beginnings, when everything that hurts has already been cut? John Self, Critic, Fiction Books of the Year Was this how it was going to be for ever? Wrapping things for customers in womenswear, no conversation. Polishing the counters so her face reflected in the brass and sweeping floors at closing time until the boss said she could leave. How much worse off would she be if she went driving with a stranger for a while?' Benjamin Wood knows how to generate tension, makes lively characters you can see and hear, and writes about rural England in a sensitive, considered way that doesn't stray into the nostalgic. A huge talent Hilary Mantel