In 1959, Liverpool Football Club were in the Second Division. Liverpool Football Club had never won the FA Cup. Fifteen seasons later, Liverpool Football Club had won three League titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. Liverpool Football Club had become the most consistently successful team in England. And the most passionately supported club. Their manager was revered as a god.Destined for immortality. Their manager was Bill Shankly. His job was his life. His life was football. His football a form of socialism. Bill Shankly inspired people. Bill Shankly transformed people. The players and the supporters.His legacy would reveberate through the ages. In 1974, Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly stood on the verge of even greater success. In England and in Europe. But in 1974, Bill Shankly shocked Liverpool and football. Bill Shankly resigned. Bill Shankly retired. Red or Dead is the story of the rise of Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly. And the story of the retirement of Bill Shankly. Of one man and his work. And of the man after that work. A man in two halves. Home and away. Red or dead.

From the bestselling author of The Damned Utd comes the story of Bill Shankly, perhaps the first truly great football manager of the modern age.

About the Author
David Peace - named in 2003 as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists - was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He is the author of the Red Riding Quartet (Nineteen Seventy Four, Nineteen Seventy Seven, Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty Three) which has been adapted into a three part Channel 4 series that aired in Spring 2009, GB84 which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Award, and The Damned Utd, the film version of which (adapted by Peter Morgan and starring Michael Sheen) was released in Spring 2009. Tokyo Year Zero, the first part of his acclaimed Tokyo Trilogy, was published in 2007, and the second part, Occupied City, in 2009.

Reviews
Red Or Dead is a masterpiece. David Peace already has a considerable reputation but this massive, painstaking account of the career of Bill Shankly towers above his previous work. -- Frank Cottrell Boyce Observer The writing is honed, sculpted, poetic ... Peace has built what is a worthy monument to a figure light years removed from the megabucks and hype of today's football. It doesn't matter if you don't follow the game, this is also a profound investigation of the tension between aspiration and the constraints of time, the very essence of the human condition -- Ben Felsenberg Metro I want to go out and knock on doors like a Jehovah's Witness and read this book to people. -- Peter Hooton Observer An epic that has more in common with Beowulf or The Iliad than with the conventional sports novel. -- Richard Lloyd Parry The Times Both epic in scale and meticulous in its attention to detail. -- Dan Davies Esquire Peace ... again proves himself to be magnificently single-minded and unbiddable, and has recognised in Shankly another brilliant and pioneering obsessive of his profession. -- Mark Lawson The Guardian


Awards
Short-listed for Goldsmiths Prize 2013.



Book Information
ISBN 9780571280650
Author David Peace
Format Hardback
Page Count 736
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 1088g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 160mm * 48mm