Post-Industrial Gothic in the Work of David Peace

Abstract

This article explores how and why Peace’s Red Riding Quartet represents the North of England as both a place apart from the rest of the UK and the logical representation of its Gothic underside during the 1970s and 80s. Together, the four novels represent an effective no-man’s land, a Yorkshire in transition and in dispute. Re-inscribing fresh meanings on an area historically defined by associations with the Brontës, the industrial revolution and heavy industry, the Quartet establishes a new post-industrial ‘mythology of the North’.