Meridiano Zero
408 pages, € 9.00
ISBN: 9788882371180
Yorkshire, 1974, winter. The English winter, what makes the freezing rain like a blade of ice that penetrates the flesh and bones. Edward Dunford, crime correspondent of the Yorkshire Post for the North of England, he smells the odor of scoop: Morley in the town of a little girl of 7 years, disappears, a case that seems to have many similarities with other two disappearances in the past. Two other girls, whose bodies were never found. Only, this time, the body of Clare Kemplay is found, through mud and debris from a construction site. Naked, covered with bruises, scratches and blood, signs of a horrible violence, hard to bear. And two swan wings sewn on the back. Edward wants the truth, but truth does not seem interested at all in most of the people has to do during the investigation: colleagues, police, politicians more or less influential, more or less corrupt. A truth that, despite the resistance, threats, torture and murder, gradually comes to light, carrying with it the dross of violence and lies that pollute the social relations at all levels.
1974 is the third novel by David Peace in which I come across. In the beginning was Tokyo Year Zero , not really a debut downhill. The first chapter of "trilogy Japanese (Of which Assayer has recently published the second installment, also available in eBook ) I won thanks to the writing dense, obsessive, aimed at making paper, in fact, obsession and alienation of the protagonist, Inspector Mikami. Having read the last word I put down the novel with the certainty that sooner or later, I again had to do with the English writer. It happened some time later with The Damned United , the best sports-themed novel I have ever read. The Brian Clough of Peace came to the right in the Hall of Fame of my favorite literary characters.
first chapter of the Red Riding Quartet, 1974 is also the debut novel of Peace, which earned him lavish praise from critics and the flattering combination of James Ellroy: hack any one mica. But I've never read Ellroy's even a line and I do not know if the combination is guessed or not. I only know that 1974 is a beautiful novel that deserves all the fame that has earned.
Writing Peace has a big advantage: you stick to your skin and you do not spring any more. Read fifty pages, and the Yorkshire Peace ve lo sentirete addosso: lo squallore dei sobborghi, il fango e l’asfalto, la puzza degli appartamenti in cui giovani marchettari concedono i loro servizi a vecchi bavosi con scroto e portafogli gonfi, l’umidità delle celle, i lividi lasciati dal manganello. E’ un cazzotto assestato lì dove fa più male, quando meno te lo aspetti. Anzi, magari te lo aspetti anche, ma, per quanto tu possa tirare gli addominali, l’effetto sarà sempre lo stesso: ti mozzerà il fiato.
La prosa asciutta e cadenzata ha la struttura del pensiero secco, rapido, scattante: la telecamera è sempre ben fissata sulle spalle del protagonista, i suoi occhi now become ours. Edward Dunford, crime correspondent for the North of England, whose naive ambition and obsessive search for truth at any cost, cost the lives of more than a person who crosses his path. A road that runs through the young reporter regardless of what is around him: her against a wall after another, gets up, the wounds still bleeding, he leaves, bumps into another wall, looks around with eyes swollen, you up again. And so on. The higher wall, the omertà, is also the most difficult to break down. The ruins bury all those who try to get a hole in the concrete to see what lurks behind it: dirty deals, rigged contracts, buildings built on the blood, silence and protection bought their weight in gold, the rampant corruption. And violence against girls as a hobby for those who can afford to buy everything. Welcome to Yorkshire: here you do not save anyone. Here we are in the North and those in charge do what they like.
The merits of the novel are so many: style, setting, characterization, time management of the narrative. Maybe Peace puts far too thinly, and there is no time to give due weight to everything: Edward goes straight on his way, and we with him. But instead of being here to do with fleas and a few minor flaws, I prefer to tell you that among many good things, there's something really good: Chapter 10, page 351 to page 368 of this edition . L '"interrogation" by Edward. 17 pages of great writing that I will return here in their entirety, except that I dislocated my fingers and you spoil the surprise. I do not want to ruin the surprise: I want you strung scarf and coat and go to the library to give you a gift. After all, Christmas is always right?
The beginning
- It's not anything, fuck, if not the fucking Lucky Lucan and a pair of crows without wings, damn it, - he smiled Gilman as if it was the happiest day of our lives.
Friday, December 13, 1974.
Waiting for my first front-page article, with the signature and everything, finally: Edward Dunford, crime correspondent for the North of England, two days too late, damn.
looked at my watch to my father.
was nine o'clock in the morning and neither one of us poor bastards had been to bed, we went directly from the Press Club in hell, still wearing the stench of beer.
the conference room of the police station Millgarth in Leeds.
