Silver's City (novel) facts for kids
2017 Turnppike Books edition
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| Author | Maurice Leitch |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg, London |
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Publication date
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1981 |
| Pages | 180 |
| Awards | Whitbread Novel of the Year Award |
| ISBN | 0-436-244136 |
| LC Class | PR6062.E46 S57 1995 |
| Preceded by | Stamping Ground |
| Followed by | Chinese Whispers |
Silver's City is a novel by the Northern Ireland author Maurice Leitch. It won the 1981 Whitbread Book Award for novel of the year and in 2017, on its republication by Northern Ireland's Turnpike Books, was described by his publisher as the "begetter of Northern noir". "Northern noir", also known as Ulster noir, is the Northern Ireland equivalent of Scandinavian Nordic noir, a distinct genre of crime fiction.
Publication
After some 15 years of the Troubles, Northern Ireland's increasingly violent sectarian conflict, "Silver's City", publication in September 1981 by Secker & Warburg, introduced a new authenticity to the literature of Northern Ireland. Probing the open wound of divided Ulster loyalists, amid the killings and bombings, it is one of the seminal fictional portraits of the Troubles. Reassessing the book on its republication in 2017, Daniel Magennis wrote for the International Crime Fiction Research Group: 'Silver's City is a menacing and expertly written thriller which explores the disaffection of a people with their own home and lays bare the corrosive effects of casual and causeless violence. Silver's City is a place where violence seems woven into its fabric, a desolate stage for the self-defeating blood sport that was much – if not all – of the Troubles. '
Plot summary
While Belfast is torn apart by a vicious, undeclared war, two men are engaged in a bitter and equally destructive private battle for vengeance. Ned Galloway, a streetwise hired gun, has abducted 'Silver' Steele a jailed Loyalist folk-hero who fired the first shot of the Troubles. Galloway's purpose – to prove who wields the real power in the city's battle-torn streets. While Galloway believes his anarchic skills can buy him a kind of freedom, Steele, having swapped a cell for the illusion of freedom, discovers that he no longer understands the mechanism and principles of the city he once fought for. Together they plunge towards the final confrontation. A confrontation where all who believe they pull the strings are proved dangerously, murderously wrong.
Radio adaptation
In 1995, a new paperback edition of Silver's City was published by Minerva. In the same year, Leitch dramatised the book for BBC Radio 4's Monday Play, a slot for the harder hitting dramas on the network. Brian Coxtook the role of Silver Steele, the Glaswegian actor Freddie Boardley played Ned Gallagher, the Northern Ireland actor James Nesbitt was Billy Bonner and Northern Ireland's Clare Cathcart took the female lead as Nan.
