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A review by leerazer
Red or Dead: A Novel by David Peace
5.0
This is a brilliant book, a towering achievement that I'll recall long after many other books have faded from my memory. I'm only agreeing with a large number of others when I note that it resembles an Homeric epic, though it concerns the manager of an English football club in the twentieth century. And that the unconventional, repetitious writing style mirrors the repetitious march of a football season, training session after training session, match after match, year after year. For an original observation, the style reminds me of Gertrude Stein. "If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him. Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it." Okay it's not that extreme, but it belongs to the same artistic experimental realm in my head.
I think it very daring of Melville House to publish this in America. As a reader open to challenging, experimental literature, as a huge fan of Liverpool Football Club, I'm the ideal target audience. But there can't be that many of me this side of the ocean. Will many Americans unfamiliar with English soccer culture pick up and enjoy a 700 page challengingly written brick of a novel about Liverpool FC and their manager Bill Shankly in the 1960s and 70s, when the game was still a working class affair even, far from the riches and glitz of the modern English Premier League? Some are, and I hope this novel finds and is enjoyed by many more.
Bill Shankly was a man worth getting to know, and this novel gives one the best possible feel for him that I can imagine a book giving. His drive, his ambition, his love for his fellow man, his obsession with the game to the unfortunate neglect of other parts of life, his difficult transition into retirement, his neediness and his generosity. Brilliant.
A quote from the book here, since it's too long to fit in the 'updates' section:
I think it very daring of Melville House to publish this in America. As a reader open to challenging, experimental literature, as a huge fan of Liverpool Football Club, I'm the ideal target audience. But there can't be that many of me this side of the ocean. Will many Americans unfamiliar with English soccer culture pick up and enjoy a 700 page challengingly written brick of a novel about Liverpool FC and their manager Bill Shankly in the 1960s and 70s, when the game was still a working class affair even, far from the riches and glitz of the modern English Premier League? Some are, and I hope this novel finds and is enjoyed by many more.
Bill Shankly was a man worth getting to know, and this novel gives one the best possible feel for him that I can imagine a book giving. His drive, his ambition, his love for his fellow man, his obsession with the game to the unfortunate neglect of other parts of life, his difficult transition into retirement, his neediness and his generosity. Brilliant.
A quote from the book here, since it's too long to fit in the 'updates' section:
In his room, his hotel room. Not in his bed, his hotel bed. Bill paced and Bill paced. Bill thinking and Bill thinking. Bill knew failure could become habitual, defeat become routine. Routine and familiar. Familiar and accepted. Accepted and permanent. Permanent and imprisoning. Imprisoning and suffocating. Bill knew failure carried chains. Chains to bind you. You and your dreams. To bind you and your dreams alive. Bill knew defeat carried spades. Spades to bury you. Your and your hopes. To bury you and your hopes alive. Bill knew you had to fight against failure. With every bone in your body. Bill knew you had to struggle against defeat. With every drop of your blood. You had to fight against failure, you had to struggle against defeat. For your dreams and for your hopes. For you and for the people. To fight and to struggle. For the dreams of the people,
for the hopes of the people. (p264)