Wood’s unnerving fourth novel follows young siblings from borstal to living on a farm in 50s England. As a portrait of youthful mistakes and adult blindness, The Young Accomplice is both tender and cutting; it is often subtle and occasionally thrilling. Christopher Shrimpton, Guardian And critics Johanna Thomas -Corr and Max Liu join Chris to discuss their richly varied recommendations for summer reading. 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.

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. 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. 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 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.His second novel The Ecliptic (2015) was shortlisted for the Encore Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. 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)

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in northwest England. He is the author of four acclaimed novels. 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.Benjamin Wood's tender fourth novel is about nature and idealism, but it also examines responsibility and the fragility of inspiration. New Statesman 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