Calgary Public Library

Occupied city, by David Peace

eng

technical information on music

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fiction

Occupied city

electronic resource

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702371714

by David Peace

On January 26, 1948, a public-health official arrives at a branch of the Teikoku Bank in Tokyo. There has been an outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood, he tells the manager, and he has been assigned by Occupation authorities to treat all locals who might have been exposed. The sixteen members of the staff gather as the official pours the first of two separate medicines into sixteen cups and instructs them in how exactly to drink it. Within five minutes, ten employees are dead and the official has fled. But the horrific crime is merely the catalyst for this blistering novel. In twelve different voices, each telling the story of the murder from a singular perpective, the narrative gathers staggering power and pathos. Every voice enlarges and deepens the portrait of a people making their way out of a war-induced hell. Wittingly or unwittingly, each one of them plays a part in blurring the line between truth and lies: in their own lives, in the life of their city, their history, their nation, the newly emerging post-war world

adult

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