Munichs, David Peace
Munichs, David Peace
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Munichs
A Novel

Author: David Peace

Narrator: Christopher Eccleston

Unabridged: 14 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/11/2024


Synopsis

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 twenty-three 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's 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.

About David Peace

David Peace is the author of the Red Riding Quartet series and was chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He is the author of six previous novels, published in the UK: the four novels of the Red Riding Quartet, GB84, and The Damned Utd. He was born and raised in West Yorkshire and now lives in the East End of Tokyo with his wife and children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mike on September 23, 2024

David Peace's new novel Munichs is a difficult book to appraise. As a lifelong Manchester United fan, born and raised in Salford, I've always had an interest in and a solemn respect for the Munich air disaster of February 1958, which robbed the club, and the world, of the 'Busby Babes', a team that......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on February 23, 2025

This is occasionally overwhelming. It displays grief in so many agonizing ways, but the intensity of the emotion combined with the sheer number of people to keep track of throughout this novel nearly makes it unbearable & unsustainable...and the major lumps of stream-of-consciousness writing don't n......more

Goodreads review by Amy on January 01, 2025

Tears in my eyes - never read anything like it. First Peace book and now looking forward to going back into his catalogue, hopefully starting with GB84.......more

Goodreads review by Francis on February 05, 2025

Absolutely gripping. I know it’s pitched to be fiction but it reads so true.......more

Goodreads review by Brian on September 16, 2024

On the 6th February 1958 a British European Airways Airspeed Ambassador ‘Elizabethan’ class aircraft, crashed into a house at the end of the runway at Munich airport in snow and ice, it was its third attempt at take off. Amongst its passengers were the Manchester United football team, they had been......more