The Benefactors (2025)

The Benefactors is a novel told in a polyphony of voices, centring on the aftermath of a sexual assault that takes place at teenage party. Much of the novel’s focus is on the families of both the victim, Misty, and the three male protagonists. The young men’s mothers, while all very different, are part of a middle-class milieu that is utterly different from that inhabited by Misty, who lives in another part of town and is part of a family used to scraping money together to make ends meet. For her own part, Misty spends some of her time camming on an OnlyFans-style site called Benefactors (or ‘Bennyz’), which is used alongside her social status as ammunition by the mothers to discredit her. The book deals with this social divide, and the way in which the odds are stacked against the likes of Misty and her family, while those with money come together to protect their own, supported by a system that can’t be beaten.