It is the tension between the two faces of Brighton – the illuminated tourist bling and the gritty, mobster-laced industry behind the façade – that sets up the intrigue in Greene's classic 1938 novel of good and evil; and it's the menacing, sinisterly youthful antihero Pinkie who continues to fascinate today. This reissue, with an introduction by JM Coetzee, coincides with the book's adaptation (again) to screen by Rowan Joffe, setting it in 1964 with Sam Riley in the lead role; Joffe's foreword to this edition is almost an apologia for daring to remake John Boulting's 1947 version, famous for Richard Attenborough's ferocious performance as Pinkie.
As well as bringing Greene commercial success, Brighton Rock also heralded the author's emergence as a "Catholic novelist". From the opening line – "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him" – the narrative has the pull of a thriller. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie is trying to cover up his involvement in Hale's murder. To do this he must silence Rose – waitress, fellow "Roman", key witness, and as innocent and youthful as her name suggests – either by marriage or by death. To Pinkie, allergic as he is to intimacy, these are interchangeable fates.
The person that stands in his way is Ida Arnold, Fred Hale's companion on his last day on earth. Ebullient and full of laughter, middle-aged Ida is determined to find the truth behind Hale's death; and once she finds it, to save Rose from her terrible destiny. Ida is a curious but effective avenging angel: non-religious but superstitious (she believed "only in ghosts, ouija boards, tables which rapped") and her outlook contrasts vividly with that of Pinkie and Rose, who are enmeshed by images of heaven and hell; of redemption offered but never taken up.
Why does this bleak, seething and anarchic novel still resonate? Its energy and power is that of the rebellious adolescent, foreshadowing the rise of the cult of youth in the latter part of the 20th century. And while Catholicism may have given way to secularism, Pinkie ultimately realises that hell isn't located in some distant realm: it's right here, present on earth, all around us.
