Benefactor: Introduction, by Paul McDonald
Readers of Wayne Dean-Richards’ short story collection, Money and Blood (2023), will recognise the terrain of this superb novella, available to download below.
Alongside Black Country novelists like Anthony Cartwright, R.M. Francis, and Kerry Hadley-Pryce, Dean-Richards has shown how the area’s dark recesses can provide fertile ground for contemporary writers, particularly those who, like him, are incensed by social injustice.
Benefactor explores the consequences of capitalism for folks at the thicker end of the region’s social pyramid: those we see around us in boozers, bookies, or scrutinising prices in Sainsbury’s bargain bins.
Jack Glancy is just such a character, struggling financially and emotionally, ripe for exploitation by those who prey on the vulnerable. Dean-Richards unpacks Jack’s interior life with insight typical of an author who, like all great exponents of working- class fiction, appreciates the pathos of the ordinary.
Those familiar with his early novella, Breakpoints (2002), know that Dean-Richards can handle longer narrative forms without loss of tension, and Benefactor has the same impressive momentum. While it is unmistakably literary fiction – we sense his fondness for Carver, Wolff, and Kellman – we also see the influence of genre writers who can create propulsive plots and use violence for dramatic effect. When his loan sharks threaten ‘intervention’, we feel a degree of menace worthy of the popular writers he loves, from Louis L’amour to Elmore Leonard.
His characters hit hard. But beyond the violence there is moral and psychological complexity. Having fallen on hard times, Jack Glancy urgently needs a ‘benefactor’, but he also becomes one himself, and the story uses the term with delightful and significant irony.
Another ‘benefactor’ is Suresh, an enforcer for local moneylenders, Harry and Malcolm Bell. He is as much of a victim as those he victimises, and his story of redemption is central to the book. Again, he is drawn with nuance and humanity – we appreciate his contradictions, and feel the force of his pain.
Such complexity is the mark of sophisticated, psychologically aware writing. Culture Matters does readers an immense service in making it available, and readers will do themselves an immense service by reading it!
Benefactor is available to freely download below, but please consider making a donation to cover our costs and help support the publication of more working-class writing. Be a benefactor!
