1974 - Softcover

Peace-david

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846687055 ISBN 13: 9781846687051

Publisher: Serpents Tail, 2008

Synopsis

It’s winter, 1974, Yorkshire. Christmas bombs and Lucky on the run, Leeds United and the Bay City Rollers, The Exorcist and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.Eddie Dunford’s got the job he wanted. Crime correspondent for the Evening Post.He didn’t know it was going to be a season in hell. A dead little girl with a swan’s wings stitched to her back. A gypsy camp in a ring of fire. Corruption everywhere you look.

About this title

Review

From the very first page of David Peace's first novel, 1974, it soon becomes clear that something is rotten in the state of Yorkshire: a young girl is missing. The Yorkshire Post's young but disillusioned crime correspondent, Edward Dunford, is assigned to the story, while also coping with the recent death of his father and his return to his native Yorkshire after a brief and unsuccessful stint in Fleet Street. For the jaded Dunford, it's just another story; the only intrigue is whether the girl will be found dead or alive before Christmas--that is, until she is discovered brutally murdered, face down in a ditch with a pair of swan's wings sewn into her back. As Dunford follows the case, he begins to make a series of terrifying connections with a string of child murders, plunging him into a gut-wrenching nightmare of corruption, violence, sadism, blackmail, and sexual obsession--from the upper echelons of local government to the tacky heart of Yorkshire darkness.

As Peace's tale of corruption and conspiracy unravels, it becomes clear that 1974 is as influenced by Orwell's own bleak vision of Britain in 1984 as it is by the wonderfully evoked atmosphere of the mid '70s. The Bay City Rollers, Leeds United, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and Vauxhall Viva's all make an appearance. The novel works at several levels, from the brilliantly unsentimental homecoming of the gifted, alienated northern son to a terrifyingly accurate portrayal of an insular, tribal community. The plot is complex and frenetic, and Peace often neglects loose ends, especially as he builds to an extremely powerful climax. Yet the dialogue is fast, witty, and violent; a must-read for fans of Yorkshire Gothic. --Jerry Brotton

About the Author

David Peace was born in 1967 and grew up in Ossett, near Wakefield. In 1994 he took up a teaching post in Tokyo and now lives there with his family. He wrote the Red Riding Quartet from 1999 to 2002, and has since written two more novels, The Damned United and Tokyo Year Zero. In May 2008 his work was the subject of a South Bank Show.

Edition details

• Publisher: Serpents Tail
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1846687055
• ISBN 13: 9781846687051
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 295