2025 Walter Scott Prize for Best Historical Novel (longlist)
One of The Week's Best novels of 2024
From the acclaimed author of The Damned Utd, a novel of tragedy and renewal, inspired by one of the greatest disasters in the history of sports.
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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
From the acclaimed author of The Damned Utd, a novel of tragedy and renewal, inspired by one of the greatest disasters in the history of sports.
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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"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
"Munichs is one of the most powerful treatments of shock mediated by ordinary human decency I have read." - Tariq Goddard
"Luminous and illuminating, a completely gripping novel about despair and repair told with heart and guts and grace." - Ashley Hickson-Lovence
"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
"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
"Munichs is one of the most powerful treatments of shock mediated by ordinary human decency I have read." - Tariq Goddard
"Luminous and illuminating, a completely gripping novel about despair and repair told with heart and guts and grace." - Ashley Hickson-Lovence
"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
"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
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for David Peace's Munichs