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Red Or Dead (2013)

by David Peace(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

057128065X (ISBN13: 9780571280650)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Faber & Faber

review 1: The Damned Utd was a fascinating and extraordinary book, even though I never did and still don't like Brian Clough. So it perhaps says something that I gave up on Red or Dead before Liverpool have won their first championship, despite the fact that I am a true devotee of the cult of Shankly. It was Bill Shankly who made me interested in football in the first place, it was Liverpool I followed, the Kop I stood on to watch them many, many times. I've long ago fallen out of love with football, but the memory of Shankly still holds a place in my heart. So I was extremely disappointed in this book. The thing about Bill was, the thing that made so many people love him, was his voice, that gruff, staccato, tough but yet kindly voice, always ready with a bit of quick fire wit. And... more in this book that voice did not come across to me at all. It is lost, drowned in the endless, endless repetition. Shankly was a lively man, full of energy and life, and the rebarbative style kills all the life in the story, rendering it boring and flat. As a writing exercise for a short story, even a short story about Shankly, the style could have been interesting and effective, but over 700 pages it just gets tedious. And just to add insult to injury, Peace omits some of Shanks' best lines ("Come and walk round him") and for a book whelmed in unnecessary statistical detail I spotted a couple of mistakes.
review 2: A lot if people would hate this book - the people I've showed a random page to just stared in shock - but I sort of loved it. I loved how you could write such an uncompromisingly experimental and literary book about football. The constant repetition is almost hypnotic once you get used to its rhythms - and it makes even the smallest differences resonate. There's a chapter at the end where he meets a boy in hospital that I found genuinely moving. Perhaps being a Liverpool fan makes me biased, but I think this is a great book - if not the easiest read in the world. less

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