A teenage sociopath rises to power in Britain’s criminal underworld in this “brilliant and uncompromising” thriller (The New York Times). Seventeen-year-old Pinkie Brown, raised amid the casual violence and corruption in the dire prewar Brighton slums, has left his final judgment in the hands of God. On the streets, impelled by his own twisted moral doctrine, he leads a motley pack of gangsters … doctrine, he leads a motley pack of gangsters whose sleazy little rackets have most recently erupted in the murder of an informant. Pinkie’s attempts to cover their tracks have led him into the bed of a timid and lovestruck young waitress named Rose—his new wife, the key witness to his crimes, and, should she live long enough, his alibi. But loitering in the shadows is another woman, Ida Arnold—an avenging angel determined to do right by Pinkie’s latest victim.
Adapted for film in both 1948 and 2010 and for the stage as both a drama and musical, and serving as an inspiration to such disparate artists as Morrissey, John Barry, and Queen, “this bleak, seething and anarchic novel still resonate[s]” (The Guardian).
more
Graham Greene has always been one of my writing heroes. He has a particular mastery of language, using just the right words with nothing extra, and Brighton Rock is one of the high points in his oeuvre.
It is unrelentingly bleak, so be prepared for that. The story is gritty and real in ways that modern film and TV desperately try to achieve with darkness and violence, but fail at because there isn’t the raw humanity that bleeds through in Greene’s work. The protagonist is an absolutely horrendous piece of work, a person with no redeeming qualities and a lot of damning ones, but you’re drawn into caring anyway. Well worth your time.
In pre-war Brighton, a gang war propels seventeen-year-old Pinkie to lead his clan in a bid to take over from rival gangster Colleoni. Having killed a man for betraying the gang, Pinkie is unaware his victim had already made contact with Ida, a bright and bubbly woman, who, suspecting foul play when the man turns up dead, determines to find out the truth.
If I’d never read any Graham Greene novels before, this book might have put me off. Compared to the likes of Our Man in Havana and The Third Man, Brighton Rock is a dark and depressing read, without the lightness of touch and humour that I love about some of Greene’s other work. Having said that, the character of Pinkie is captivating and his struggle to gain the upper hand in the Brighton gang wars is ingeniously hampered by his inner battle with Catholic morality. Pinkie’s difficulty with women adds another layer of challenges for him, along with a belief that marrying Rose, a young waitress who holds information that could convict him of murder, will prevent her from giving evidence. However, other gang members contribute to Pinkie’s increasingly precarious situation, leading him to commit further crimes in order to keep himself out of jail.
Occasionally difficult to read, and probably not the best book to choose as a starting point if you’ve never read this author’s work before, Brighton Rock is nevertheless a fascinating portrait of a pre-war seaside town and its seedy underbelly.
I could not stop thinking about the end of this book for weeks!
The writing was terrific. It wasn’t a fun book to read. I did not find the ending credible or satisfying.
Did not like it
Greene remains one of the great character creators of the 20th cenrury. The characters in this short book are some of his tortured best.
This book starts out as a story of petty criminals on the 1930s Brighton, England waterfront, suddenly transforms into a love story, then gradually descends into a tragedy. There’s a murder in the first chapter that sets both the romance and the approaching tragedy in motion. By page 50, love blooms between an underage crime boss named Pinkie and a shop-girl and witness-to-murder named Rose. But expect no Romeo-and-Juliet story because Pinkie is a 17-year-old sociopath and the portrayal of the psychology of abuser and victim is explicit and depicted with great realism.
Fast-paced, straight-into-the-action, classic thriller. A story of good versus evil with two unlikely but exceptionally well-drawn adversaries.