The Book of Evidence
Cover of the original edition
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| Author | John Banville |
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| Country | Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg |
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Publication date
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1989 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 224 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 45363983 |
| 823/.914 21 | |
| LC Class | PR6052.A57 B36 2001 |
| Followed by | Ghosts |
The Book of Evidence is a 1989 novel by the Irish writer John Banville. The book is narrated by Freddie Montgomery, a 38-year-old scientist, who murders a servant girl during an attempt to steal a painting from a neighbour. Freddie is an aimless drifter, and though he is a perceptive observer of himself and his surroundings, he is largely amoral.
Many of the characters in The Book of Evidence appear in the 1993 sequel Ghosts.
Freddie Montgomery is the unreliable narrator who tells his life-story and recounts the events leading up to his arrest for the murder of a servant girl in one of Ireland's "big houses". A cultured but louche Anglo-Irish scientist who has been living abroad for many years, Freddie returns to his ancestral home seeking money after falling foul of a gangster in the Mediterranean. Shocked to discover that his mother has sold the family's collection of paintings, Freddie attempts to recover them. This leads to a tragic series of events culminating in Freddie's killing of a maid while stealing a painting. On the run, he hides out in the house of old family friend, Charlie, a man of some influence, before being arrested and interrogated. The novel ends as Freddie sits in jail and has the first feelings of remorse for the girl's death while casting doubt on the truth of what he has recounted.
The central events of the murder and subsequent flight are based on the 1982 case of Malcolm Edward MacArthur, who killed a young nurse in Dublin during the course of stealing her car. MacArthur, a well-known eccentric in the city's social circles, took refuge (as a guest) at the home of Patrick Connolly, then the Irish Attorney General, where he was ultimately arrested. A serious effort was made to prevent the relationship between Connolly and MacArthur becoming public. Taoiseach Charles Haughey described the incidents and MacArthur's taking shelter at Connolly's as "a bizarre happening, an unprecedented situation, a grotesque situation, an almost unbelievable mischance". The acronym GUBU (grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented) was coined by Conor Cruise O'Brien and later applied to reflect the entirety of Haughey's March–December 1982 government, a government marred by constant turmoil.
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