David Peace anyone?

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Whilst searching for a book I've read but can't find (another thread!) I've come across an author called David Peace. I fancy a couple of them GB1984 - deals with miners strike & 1974, 1977 et al. Anyone read these? And what did you think? Cheers in advance

They're brilliant but very, very dark. 1977 is possibly the bleakest book I've ever read. They're especially good if you know Yorkshire at all. But they are pretty heavy reads.

Hi there baberuthless thanks! I didn't grow up in Yorkshire, but am a northerner so that was part of the appeal. Is the violence very graphic? That's the bit that is making me slightly dubious. I don't mind the bleakness, just the violence! thanks!!

I've read the four books in the Red Riding Quartet but they are incredibly dark, bleak and elliptical and difficult to follow: but still excellent books. Essentially a fictionalising of certain elements of the Yorkshire Ripper story, with other plots woven in and a profound amount of police corruption. Some of the violence is described on repeat as stream-of-consciousness thoughts in the killer's head.

Nethertheless I recommend them (and also the Channel 4 three-part dramatisation of them).

It's not so much the graphic violence as it is the fact that the bleakness is so unrelenting. In 1980 there's a detective who comes from Manchester to investigate the ripper case & his wife is begging him not to go to Yorkshire. It's depicted as such a dark, corrupt place. I recognise some of the places in the books but you don't have to know Yorkshire to read them.

I started reading the Tokyo trilogy and just couldn't get through it. I very rarely abandon a book but I was all Peace'd out.

Amazing writer though.

Thank you both. I think I will make a start on the red riding quartet. My local library has all 4. The librarian I was asking today about the other book raved about David Peace and from the reviews I've read and your accounts the books sound fascinating. Thanks again!

Just as a footnote to your discussion, we had David Peace on for a book club webchat back in 2010 when we talked about his book about Brian Clough. This is the link to the thread where David talks about his writing.

Cheers for that link. It was before I joined mumsnet so didn't know that was there.