Overview

In 1958, Manchester United was flying high: the best-known soccer team in the world and reigning English champions, the team was led by a bright young group of star players nicknamed the “Busby Babes” after their charismatic manager Matt Busby. But on a snowy afternoon that February, a plane carrying the team back from a European Cup match crashed on takeoff in Munich, killing 23 people—including eight Manchester United players and three team officials. The accident destroyed the team, traumatized fans all over the world, and devastated the tight-knit community in Manchester. In this hypnotic and deeply moving novel, renowned novelist David Peace reimagines the crash and its aftermath, dramatizing the deep scars it left on British society. Moving between the fictionalized voices of survivors, including players, their family members, and Busby himself, Munichs powerfully interprets the struggles of a team, a city, and a nation to recover and rise again. Peace has been hailed as “brilliant” by Kazuo Ishiguro and his novels have been lauded as “incantatory” (Los Angeles Times), “ambitious and heartbreaking” (NPR), and “the stuff of great literature” (New York Times Book Review). With Munichs, he has crafted another extraordinary novel, one that intimately explores the reverberations of trauma and the power of community in the wake of tragedy.

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9781324086260

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Reviews

""Absolutely gripping."" -- Robbie Millen - The Times ""Electrifying … Here, again, is the need to understand what has preoccupied those closest to us."" -- Alex Clark - Guardian ""Peace’s prose grips us by our throats from the get-go … Beautifully conceived and executed, Munichs plumbs the fraught legacy of loss. It’s a master stroke from a writer at the height of his powers."" -- Hamilton Cain - Minnesota Star Tribune ""Haunting but full of love … Touching on profound themes such as greatness, loss, grief, friendship, resilience and the meaning of sport, Munichs does that, and more. A magnificent book."" -- Mike Atherton - The Times ""Peace’s most humane work. … [T]old with such diligent and delicate reverence."" -- Pete Segall - Defector ""You don't need to be a fan of Manchester United or even know anything about football to enjoy Munichs. This isn't just a book, it's an intricate work of art."" -- Anne Marie Scanlon - Irish Independent ""[A book] of enormous tenderness too—because this is a thorough and reverent tribute to everybody involved … The combination of heart, sheer scale and—let’s face it—a sense of relief that Peace has forsaken cussedness for epic narrative sweep adds up to an irresistibly stirring read."" -- James Walton - Sunday Times ""This towering requiem about the Manchester United aircraft disaster is a masterpiece."" -- Eoinn McNamee - Irish Times ""Peace is that rare thing in literary publishing: a genuine crossover success, bringing the pleasures of well-crafted narrative fiction to readers of true crime, social history and sports biography … There is artistry here too, in the author's sensitive weighting of tone and timbre, and the elegant simplicity of the dialogue … an elegy for a society's lost innocence."" -- Financial Times ""Tender, atmospheric—and hopeful … I did not want to leave."" -- Max Liu - iNews ""[A] deeply moving account … Peace captures all the conflicting emotions of people trying to rally in the wake of a senseless tragedy. Readers should pounce."" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""[A] tribute to a devastating moment."" -- Kirkus Reviews ""A work of exhaustive research, numinous scope, and scalding intimacy; a remorselessly beautiful, grieving, loving testament to a tragedy; and David Peace’s greatest book yet."" -- Tom Benn, author of Oxblood ""Luminous and illuminating, a completely gripping novel about despair and repair told with heart and guts and grace."" -- Ashley Hickson-Lovence, author of The 392 ""Munichs is one of the most powerful treatments of shock mediated by ordinary human decency I have read."" -- Tariq Goddard, author of Homage to a Firing Squad ""In its depth, decency, and sheer style, Munichs captures the shock and the sorrow, the drive and hope for the future, and the way football can reflect and focus our culture and society. Truly brilliant."" -- John King, author of London Country ""Peerless. David Peace drops you right into the middle of a profound, national grief and you come out of it with a better understanding of who we were, who we are. A brilliant, brilliant book."" -- David Whitehouse, author of About a Son ""Magnificent, a sustained masterpiece of voice, immersive and charged, deeply-felt. What a privilege to read such an intimate novel that is also a humane meditation on our collective history."" -- Joe Thomas, author of Red Menace ""Every time I finish a David Peace novel I feel like I've gone a few rounds in the ring with a title contender. I can't think of another British novelist who writes with as much conviction, dedication and sheer bloody-mindedness as Peace."" -- Doug Johnstone

"""A work of exhaustive research, numinous scope, and scalding intimacy; a remorselessly beautiful, grieving, loving testament to a tragedy; and David Peace’s greatest book yet."" -- Tom Benn, author of Oxblood ""Luminous and illuminating, a completely gripping novel about despair and repair told with heart and guts and grace."" -- Ashley Hickson-Lovence, author of The 392 ""Munichs is one of the most powerful treatments of shock mediated by ordinary human decency I have read."" -- Tariq Goddard, author of Homage to a Firing Squad ""In its depth, decency, and sheer style, Munichs captures the shock and the sorrow, the drive and hope for the future, and the way football can reflect and focus our culture and society. Truly brilliant."" -- John King, author of London Country ""Peerless. David Peace drops you right into the middle of a profound, national grief and you come out of it with a better understanding of who we were, who we are. A brilliant, brilliant book."" -- David Whitehouse, author of About a Son"

Author Information

David Peace is the author of eleven novels, including the Red Riding Quartet; GB84, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; the Tokyo Trilogy; Red or Dead; and The Damned Utd, which was made into a feature film starring Michael Sheen. He has been chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, he now lives in Tokyo.

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