Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Recommended by Luke Williams 

Brighton Rock explores themes of manipulation, religion, love, suicide, violence and hatred. Its central character, Pinkie, a small-time gangster, is a bad person. Despite this, Graham Greene presents his tale in such a way that it can be easy for the reader to forget it. 

After murdering Fred Hale, a reporter whose investigations have led to his mentor Kite’s throat being slit, Pinkie needs an alibi, and he has the perfect candidate: Rose, a young waitress at the local restaurant, who is in love with him. But a local singer, Ida Arnold, who does not believe the police report on Hale's death that pinned the cause as suicide, takes on the role of detective and tries to make Pinkie pay for his crimes. She attempts to open Rose’s eyes to the illusion of love that Pinkie has presented to her.  While Ida is following his every move, Pinkie goes on a frantic chase to clear his name and avoid the rope, while painting a cool and calm picture of himself on the outside.

 

Even though it is clear to the reader that Pinkie is an almost psychopathic being who takes a Machiavellian approach to his problems, the reader can feel sympathetic towards him. As a 17-year-old boy, full of grand and oppressive emotions, seeing his friends fall all around him as he attempts to escape justice, it is easy to feel pity for him. At the same time, however, Rose is subjected to such a level of trickery that she is nearly brought to suicide. There are so many angles that the book can be viewed from that it creates an interesting dynamic when attempting to read it from an unbiased perspective.

Another important aspect of the tale is Pinkie and Rose’s view on sin as Roman Catholics. While Rose is constantly fearful of God and always comes back to doing what is right, even in the direst situations, Pinkie almost ignores religion, focussing instead on the present and how he can survive another day. Despite this, he pretends to have the same view as Rose, altering her actions by lying to her about the morality of his own.

Brighton Rock is an undeniably horrible yet fascinating book. It plays on human emotion and explores the thoughts of both the characters and the reader; in doing so it presents both the purest and most innocent as well as the most malevolent and hateful of both. Brighton Rock is a must-read and a truly thought-provoking novel.