The Sports Bookshelf

REVIEWS AND OPINIONS David Peace's novel about Bill Shankly, Red or Dead, has divided opinion among reviewers.  At 700 pages, it is a novel of epic proportions, certainly - the kind of length for which a novelist in a prime seeking to set down a tour de force might strive.  Peace's admirers have declared it to be a masterpiece. Others are less sure. It was a similar story with The Damned United , in which Peace interwove fact with fiction to tell the tale of Brian Clough's ill-starred 44 days as manager of Leeds United. Many readers loved it, placing it among the best books about football ever written, On the other hand, the Clough family and those close to them were horrified, regarding Peace's portrayal of the central character as a travesty. This time it is not so much the content but the highly stylised writing has met with mixed views.  Peace is renowned for his staccato, rhythmic prose, and his use of repetition as a literary device. It characterised his

Controversial author David Peace, who generated both anger and acclaim with his fictional account of Brian Clough's torrid 44 days as Leeds United manager, is to place another football legend at the heart of a novel. Almost six years after his dark portrayal of Clough's imagined inner torment in The Damned United, Peace has turned his attention to a man whose greatness he makes no attempt to deny, the former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly. Red or Dead, to be published by Faber in August -- a month ahead of the centenary of Shankly's birth -- will focus on how Shankly, who had previously managed Carlisle United, Workington, Grimsby Town and Huddersfield Town, emerged from relative obscurity to transform then down-at-heel Liverpool into the team that would dominate English football and conquer Europe. It will dwell, too, on Shankly's life after Liverpool, following his surprise decision to retire in 1974, which to an extent was a rather sad time, in which he st