Havoc, In Its Third Year
Ronan BennettA guilty secret, an old faith or a respect for law can all prove equally lethal in Ronan Bennet’s 17th century England, rife with religious extremism.
The time is the early 17th century, as the quarrel between Royalists and Parliamentarians turns toward civil war, and that between Catholics and Protestants leads toward bloody religious tyranny; the place is a town in northern England, set in a grim landscape swept by crop failures, plague and rumours of war, in which rigid Puritans have taken over government and imposed their own rules.
"If there is a central focus in Havoc, it is not so much on Brigge as on all those bodies it is his job to prod and palp and read and judge. Under his clear gaze battered corpses are made to point to their murderers, while women's sexual places give up their secret stories. Yet despite all the opportunities for revelling in pus and shit, Bennett is careful to discipline his account so that the stinking gums, torn flesh and vomit dribbles are tempered by gentler sights and sounds." - Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
Ronan Bennett’s longlisting for Havoc, in Its Third Year caused controversy: as a young man he was twice imprisoned, once for involvement with the IRA and once for anarchist terrorism offences. Bennett, English-born but raised in Northern Ireland, has always been politically active, and while his five novels don’t deal directly with the Troubles they do so by allegory and allusion. Since his last novel, Zugzwang (2006), which was published in weekly instalments in the Observer newspaper, he has concentrated on writing for film and television.