Munichs is the third book of David Peace’s unofficial “football trilogy”.
FICTION
Munichs
David Peace
Faber, $45
Munichs is David Peace’s 11th full-length novel and the third book of his unofficial “football trilogy”. It is the story of the immediate aftermath of the Munich air disaster, the tragic plane crash of 1958 that killed 22 passengers, including eight members of Manchester United’s promising “Busby Babes” team (named after manager Sir Matt Busby), who were returning from a victory over Red Star Belgrade in the European Cup.
The crash itself is told in terse journalistic language and is very effectively done. The days and weeks after are largely seen through the perspective of Bill Foulkes, the centre-back, and goalkeeper Harry Gregg, who were largely unhurt in the accident.
Gregg in particular is a fascinating character, a hard-nosed Ulsterman who ran back into the burning plane four times to drag a pregnant woman, Vera Lukić, and three fellow players – Bobby Charlton, Jackie Blanchflower and Dennis Viollet – to safety. Gregg plays in the first game after the disaster and is the rock on which the United of the 1960s will be built.
Peace takes us into the heart of the team and the city of Manchester as the club tries to rebuild. Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool – the North – is the world Peace grew up in and that he conveys in arresting and convincing period detail.
It is fair to say that Peace’s style is not for everyone. Elliptical, repetitive, elusive, Peace follows his own mythology, obsessions and demons. Safe in Tokyo, away from the London literary scene’s trends and gossip for the past two decades, Peace writes about whatever he wants to write about at his own schedule. This kind of insulation can be both good and bad for a writer.
A poster in 2008 of the Busby Babes, at Old Trafford in Manchester.Credit: AP
Martin Amis often talks about a pact that an author makes with the reader: if you give me your full attention, I won’t be boring or give into cliche. Successful authors sometimes forget about the pact. Anyone who has ever read the Harry Potter novels to their children is familiar with the book when J.K. Rowling decided that she would no longer subject herself to the whims of editors. And one sometimes wonders how Peace can really be edited – if you start cutting the repetitive or obscure bits, maybe the entire book would unravel.
What I’m trying to say here is that Munichs is perhaps not the best place for a David Peace novice. I’d begin with The Damned Utd his first football book, the most reader-friendly and accessible of Peace’s fictions. It is the story of Brian Clough’s troubled 44-day stint as the manager of Leeds United in 1974. Then I’d jump straight into Red or Dead, Peace’s second football novel about Bill Shankly’s tenure as Liverpool manager, which I consider to be Peace’s masterpiece.
