- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; New Ed edition (2 Jun 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571225799
- ISBN-13: 978-0571225798
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,350,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
When the daughter of an Irish judge was found stabbed 37 times in the early hours of 13 November 1952 in the Northern Irish village of Whiteabbey-the setting of Eoine McNamee's The Blue Tango--the story made front page news for almost a year. Iain Gordon, an Englishman stationed at a nearby RAF base was arrested and then tried on circumstantial evidence. Only last year his original conviction was overturned and he was finally released. The real killer of 19-year-old Patricia Curran was never caught and Blue Tango is the tantalising fictional reading of the case.
McNamee's novel, intricately researched and meticulously capturing the tense mood of rural post-war Northern Ireland, makes clear the cultural significance of the Curran murder. Patricia Curran was beautiful, headstrong and in full-blown rebellion against the emotional wasteland of her family and struggling to determine a life for herself. She was like a stormwarning of the changes that would sweep over that future generation of women who were determined their lives would be a contrast to their mothers. But the media spin of the 1950s interpreted her protest merely as sluttish behaviour (she had had lovers, including a married man) and the story was often reduced to a homicidal peep-show.
McNamee dissects the detectives who were involved in the case, has interviewed witnesses and studied the newspaper accounts of the period, but the inner thoughts and motivations of those involved are purely his own invention. His fine talent is in transporting the reader back into that stifling world where a few brave souls were struggling to emerge into the 20th century while fighting off their country's most archaic traditions. --Julie Wheelwright --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Carlo Gebler, Irish Times
It’s so well done I couldn’t tell where reportage ended and invention began. . . This is a remarkable book and, in time... it will come to be seen as a classic.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Eoin McNamee's The Blue Tango is an excellent book and it is little wonder it has made the long list for this year's Booker prize. It tells the true story of the murder of Patricia Curran in 1952, a savage event for which the real killer was not revealed. Set very much in the Gothic tradition, McNamee gives meaning in his book by way of unusual imagery and powerful language. A host of real life characters stalk the text. We have the figure of the Judge, a flawed Establishment figure. Blackly, lowering and endlessly resourceful in his opaquely evil ends he haunts the book. His son Desmond is cold and distant and seems unable to form meaningful relationships. Doris Curran is probably mad and Patricia, given her youth and free spirit, is in some ways exempt from prevailing social and ethical mores, a fact which cost her her life. These family members are towered over by The Glen, the Gothic House. This is a house with a history. We are told there "were parts of the house where the sun never penetrated" and the Currans seem to avoid being in it as much as possible. Outside of all this but drawn into it is Iain Hay Gordon, an innocent. In true Gothic there are the Elect and the Damned and Gordon, like Patricia, is very much in the latter category. Inexplicably he is found guilty of Patricia's murder. A conspiracy at the highest levels is revealed to protect the Currans and one of them, Desmond, flees two years after the murder to seek solace and refuge in the arms of the Catholic church. This reviewer lives only three miles fron where all these events took place and people are still talking. McNamee gives the strongest hint possible that such talk will continue until the crime is eventually solved. He tells us that Gordon used to whistle "The Blue Tango" during his police interrogations to keep his spirits up. In giving his novel the same name he suggests we are all whistling it to keep our spirits up until the truth about this case is revealed. Music deadening the senses to the truth. I sincerely hope that truth is revealed some day.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I cannot believe that people find fault with this novel on account that the bus times have been slightly altered or that the weather on such and such a day was different, if you look up the historical weather chart. It's a novel, alright?! A NOVEL. Not a true-history account in the daily paper where you then write in and say "My auntie was actually there and she says..." This novel takes a historical fact and crafts it into a work of art. The claustrophobic, fanaticised atmosphere of a bigoted protestant milieu is brilliantly captured and followed through to its bitter end. Read it!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book left me gasping for breath. Yes, it is dark, yes, it is ultra bleak, stark, brutal and merciless. But let that not put you off - because strangely enough it is also an excellent read. The tightly-knit, conspiratorial society it describes, the characters in their almost Dickensian frightfulness, the innocence of the victim and the (wrongly accused) soldier all cast a spell over the reader. The language has the typical McNamee tone: reportage that manages to be menacing, cold and yet strangely magical. Don't take my word for it, read it and you'll see!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Was the author in a bad mood?
A judge's daughter is murdered in 1950s Northern Ireland and a local man, Iain Hay Gordon, is sentenced to the mental home (he could have been hanged) but was there more to this... Read more
Published 19 months ago by C. Wilson
Oh dear, oh dear
I have spend considerable time studying the Curran / Gordon case for a research project into miscarriages of justice. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2004 by K
Blue Tango: inaccurate, cliched, unilluminating
The Patricia Curran murder was a fascinating case. How then did Eoin McNamee manage to render it so uninteresting? Read more
Published on 5 July 2001
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