22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Experimental crime fiction with a social conscience, August 21, 2001
This review is from: Nineteen Seventy Seven (Paperback)
David Peace's first novel, Nineteen seventy four was a story with roots in working class English literature. The central character, Eddy, a journalist, became embroiled in police corruption, and a sordid series of child murders. The novel was set in Yorkshire, written in the first person, and explored the underside of an area that months later saw the start of a vicious series of sexual murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper". This was a promising debut. That promise starts to be fulfilled with the second volume in Peace's West Yorkshire Quartet, Nineteen Seventy Seven.
In this novel Peace raises his work a notch. He has produced one of the finest British crime novels of recent years, and in his quartet of novels looks set to produce one of the finest series since Ellroy's Dudley Smith novels.
The narrative in Nineteen Seventy Seven focuses on two characters, Jack Whitehead, a journalist; and Bob Fraser, a police sergeant. Both characters appeared in Nineteen Seventy Four. Both are haunted by the shocking conclusion to the earlier novel. Their stories are set against the backdrop of the Sutcliffe murders, and the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Each strand is written in first person narrative, and for the most part the plot lines run parallel, although Fraser and Whitehead meet and exchange information. There are some stylistic similarities between the two strands (both have astream of consciousness feel) but for the most part the characters are sufficiently differentiated. While the strands run parallel there are some similarities in their development. For example, both are, or become, involved with prostitutes at a time when those prostitutes in West Yorkshire feared for their lives due to the Sutcliffe murders.
This is where Peace has taken an audacious step. In Nineteen Seventy Seven he begins to work on a fictionalisation of the Sutcliffe murders. However, the salient facts remain accurate. He places his characters in the main regional newspaper, and in the crime squad investigating the murders. At the centre of the novel lie the murders, and Peace - in both strands - is interested in following up the victim's reactions. His characters visit the families. Unlike some of the crossword puzzle mysteries where murder is a game with no consequences here, everyone involved is affected, from the family, to those investigating, to those that are left, living in fear. It is this agenda that underpins the novel and Peace's third novel, Nineteen Eighty, published in the UK in August 2001. And it is this dimension, developing in this novel and still further in Nineteen eighty, that gives Nineteen seventy seven a depth that much contemporary crime and thriller fiction lacks.
Aside from the social dimension, Peace's work has raised a level from his first novel in his characterisation. Neither central character is an archetypal hero, neither wholly amoral. Whitehead and Fraser are both given enough complexity to be credible. There are some powerful (and very disturbing) scenes in which Fraser assaults his lover; coupled with a tenderness between Fraser and his child. Taking mere examples from the novel may make the characterisation sound pat, the usual policeman bending the rules with personal difficulties. It is not easy to convey how unlike the orthodox approach in crime fiction this is. However, differ it does; and this is primarily through the first person narrative.
One further dimension is the series of occasional transcripts from a fictionalised talk radio show where callers talk about the Ripper, the Jubilee, and late seventies Yorkshire. These interludes punctuate the chapters, acting like a Greek chorus on the events in the main narrative.
I should also note the powerful conclusion. In Nineteen seventy four, the conclusion is overblown, excessive. Here, in retrospect, it seems inevitable. Yet, it is all the more shocking for that.
As the second book in the series, I would recommend that this be read after Nineteen seventy four. There are various references, and incidental characters (including BJ , involved in the blackmail of a councillor in Nineteen seventy four) where knowledge from the first novel is presupposed. Without Nineteen seventy four I feel that many references would have passed me by. However, as the subject matter is sufficiently different this novel could be read as stand alone.
Having praised the novel why a rating of four and not five stars? This is based on one consideration central to Peace's agenda. I am uncertain to what extent crime novelists should deal with real events, fresh in the memories. While the novelist expresses concern about those affected - and makes this a central plank of the novel, could one argue that the very action of using the murders is itself potentially exploitative and damaging.
Highly recommended. If you liked this try On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill, or The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes the speed of this novel is breathtaking, October 29, 2008
Following on from his spectacular first novel- "1974" which dealt with a series of child abductions and murders; 1977 is about the "Yorkshire Ripper" and a series of prostitution murders and mutilations. The two main characters are brought over from the first novel. Jack Whitehead, the 'Reporter of the Year' in "1974" is even more of a drunken wreck than he was three years before. Bob Fraser was a cop who worked on the first serial murders and now is working on the "Yorkshire Ripper" murders.
The "Ripper's" MO is to knock them out with blows to the head from a ball-peen hammer, and then he attacks their bodies with a philips screw- driver. Both men are involved with prostitute, as it seems is half of the police constabulary of Leeds and surrounding town where the murders occur. Fraser's is an ongoing relationship that is tangential to many of the murders and assaults that have occurred. Whitehead gets involved with one of the woman who survived the assault.
We are taken through the grisly murders and the abuse of suspects by both the police and at times, each other. If that sounds confusing, try reading the book. Peace has a very strange style to say the lease. He has each of his two narrators (Fraser and Whitehead) speak in the first person, and sometimes it's two or three pages before you can tell who's speaking. At other places he writes as train of thought (by the character) and you have a paragraph(?) that can run for pages without a period. Reading some parts of the book is like running, you can actually feel your heart rate speed-up. Quite the book.
Read it yourself and determine your own opinion.
Zeb Kantrowitz
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace, April 1, 2010
I thought Nineteen Seventy-Four was bleak, but Nineteen Seventy-Seven made that book look like Dr. Seuss.
Seventy-Seven follows two minor characters from Nineteen Seventy-Four, DI Bob Fraser and Reporter Jack Whitehead, as they both investigate the Yorkshire Ripper murders.
The years between 74 and 77 have not been kind to either character, and both have sunk pretty low. Fraser in particular has gone from an honest cop to committing criminal acts. Yet somehow Peace made me care about Bob, and I was heartbroken to see where his story leads.
For Jack we are shown what happened to him in quick bursts with a little more detail each time. It is up to the reader to figure out what happened to Jack that lead to his hard times.
Jack and Bob's stories crash into each other at the end before veering off in opposite directions again.
This was a really good read, and the style of prose, while similar to Nineteen Seventy-Four, was different enough to make it its own novel.
I read the first chapter of Nineteen Eighty, book 3 of the Red Riding Quartet, as soon as I finished Nineteen Seventy-Seven. I rarely read three books in a row by the same author, but I think I'm going to go four for four and read Nineteen Eighty-Three after Nineteen Eighty.
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