Boy A

Boy A is a very challenging book, dealing with one hell of a delicate subject. Boy A is a child murderer just released from institutional care and prison where he has been since his involvement (with another boy) in the murder of a beautiful young girl when he was 10 years old. The second boy hanged himself or was lynched whilst in prison. The book constantly reminded me of the Bulger murder as the story is so similar,except in this case the victim was a young female. The book is splendidly written with a bleak,dark atmosphere of forboding from start to finish. The author captures the hopelessness not only of Jack's (Boy A) situation as he tries to settle into a new life and reinvent himself, but also paints a dreary picture of the show more society and circumstances in which he was brought up, giving the impression that these senseless murders are just waiting to happen,and that the boy is almost as much a victim as the girl he helped to murder. The author is also scathing in his attitude to the gutter press,and their campaigns for mob revenge on the two boys, for example the hanging of boy B in prison was greeted in The Sun with the headline "Good Riddance". I think the author does a magnificent job of getting across the point that when something as horrific as the murder of a child occurs,society needs to see an angel in the victim and a monster in the perpetrator,there can be no room for a grey area,because that would mean that we would all have to look closely at our own shortcomings and ask ourselves how these situations can be allowed to develop in the first place.The author captures this mood nicely by reversing the adage "Only the good die young" to "Only the young die good".
Trigell's fine first novel challenges the black and white thinking which most of us adopt to help us cope with such unpleasent situations, and poses challenges for parents, health care systems, education systems;specifically bullying in schools, and policing systems.
Boy A is a harrowing book and will not be to everyone's taste. I thought it was an excellent read, dealing with a very difficult subject,and the writing is superb show less

Boy A is a haunting read, provoking the reader to engage with ambiguous issues and to examine their own reactions to the shades of grey of our society that are often rendered in the media in black and white.
The narrative focuses on the release of a man who may, or may not, have been guilty of a child abduction and murder when himself a child. In interleaving flashbacks the tangled threads of the histories of various of the characters are traced through to their consequences for the present. As is to be expected of a book dealing with this subject matter, the book does contain some graphic violence and sexual language

Trigell obviously loves language and uses it richly and imaginatively, even poetically. At times the fascination with show more tricks of language does get in the way, being a bit too clever, intruding into the narrative. This is especially incongruous when they occur in dialogue. This is an engaging, thought provoking read. However, ultimately I found it to be just a little too predictable and not substantial enough to be completely satisfying. show less

Harrowing. Heartbreaking. Fabulously discussion-worthy. All these are apt ways to describe Jonathan Trigell’s lightning bolt to the nervous system, ‘Boy A.’ It would be pretty accurate to say I loved this book, and even when I hated it, I loved it, because I realized when it was making me edgy and mad it was actually making me think. You don’t have to agree with it’s political viewpoint, but you will have to allow your beliefs and preconceptions to be challenged for the sake of the experience.

Jack is not an orphan, but he might as well be. After years locked away for a ghastly childhood crime, Jack has been reintroduced to society under a different identity, hiding from the media and potential acts of vigilantism. Jack’s show more Liberal social worker, Terry, believes he is essentially good. But can Jack really start his life over? Can he fall in love? Does he deserve to be given a second chance, considering what he did to another life?

Throughout the book Jack is portrayed to be a bit childlike and naïve, without coming off a saccharine or eye-rollingly idiotic. His romance with Michelle, a more experienced young woman, is touching and real. Finally a love interest with more reason for being than simply saving a troubled young man from himself. Michelle is not a manic pixie dream girl. She reminds me of the character from “Silver Linings Playbook” (the movie.) She’s made up of parts- strength, shrewdness, vulnerability. And she likes all those bits, even the dirty ones.

‘Boy A’, above all, a meditation on growing up, the possibility and unpredictability of change, and the horrors of living under the scrutinizing eye of the media. The writing is incisive and laden with layers of meaning. The ending is bleak, but also leaves us to contemplate how such a pay-off could’ve been avoided.

The only thing I really didn’t like about this book is the snide judgment with which the author portrays Angela, the victim of Jack’s adolescent crime. Angela is ten, but the author seems to treat her as responsible beyond her years, while the blame is displaced from Jack and his unnamed, delinquent friend. Once a bitch, always a bitch, the novel seems to say, which really didn’t sit well with me. I think less time could be spent on portraying Angela as a spoiled princess that ‘bad things just didn’t happen to’ and more time showing the grief of her family at such a senseless crime should have been incorporated. While focusing almost entirely on Jack’s pain is novel, it also seems kind of inappropriate considering the subject matter.

Although I found that aspect of ‘Boy A’ somewhat reprehensible, the rest of the book was so beautifully written and psychologically complex that I cannot help writing a glowing review. The shifting perspectives (though fully grounded in third-person) give a darker, deeper look into the events that make up the book’s chapters. I also highly recommend the film adaptation with Andrew Garfield. Garfield gives a beautifully realized portrayal of Jack, and the most important aspects of the book are retained in the film version. Happy reading! show less

I didn't want to enjoy reading this book due to its subject matter - I didn't want to admit that I could empathise with someone who was capable of doing such an awful act, but I did - because he was only ten when it happened.
Having to start afresh when released into a world of which he has no experience requires courage and the guiding hand of 'Uncle Terry' - Jack's surrogate father. Jack's doing well, trying hard at working, making friends, and getting a girlfriend, but the media continually keeps nibbling away at the fact that a (child) child-killer is lose in the community - surely it can't end happily ever after?
The author cleverly builds up the tension, interweaving layers of the Boy A's neglected childhood and the crime itself, show more with life in prison, and life outside in the real world. Told mainly from Jack's PoV, but also from his friends, case-worker Terry and girlfriend Michelle. Things are never black and white, just different shades of grey... A really thought-provoking book that I'm glad I read. show less

I approached this book with some trepidation - the synopsis being the story of a man who, as a child, committed a "monstrous crime", and is now about to be released with a new false identity, aged 24. I thought it sounded like a depressing story, and I would not really not be able to empathise with the main character. I was very wrong.

The book's narrative grips from the first page, where Jack, newly released, marvels at "this new unroofed world". You are immediately told the basics of his case - jailed as a barely-prosecutable child, vilified by the tabloid press - but the young man we meet seems startled by the world, guided by the youth worker, and father-figure, Terry, who has been his only true friend throughout his show more imprisonment.

The story jumps between two different times - one thread starts at the moment of Jack's release, the other starts during his childhood. As both threads progress, we get to know both the man and the boy, and we start to wonder what went wrong? His current day story carries on in a linear fashion, but the story of his childhood and imprisonment jumps backwards and forwards. The author keeps the suspense running, and by the time we get close to what the boy is supposed to have committed, we know the man well enough to question his guilt.

I read the Serpent's Tail edition of this book, and there were a couple of annoying typographical errors which jarred me out of the story in which I was engrossed. It might sound petty, but when you see something wrong, it leaps out at you and distracts you. (For reference, the two errors are "Mr Ben" instead of "Mr Benn" (the children's television programme), and "a long barrelled Cannon" rather than Canon, regarding a camera lens.)

But overall, a very engrossing read. I would recommend it to anyone. show less

Boy A, Jonathan Trigell's debut novel, concerns "Jack Burridge as the protagonist is known. It is a false name, as was "Boy A", by which he was referred to in court when he and "B" were convicted as children of the brutal assault and murder of another child. Having served his sentence he must adapt to life outside the institutional lines of prison, helped by his supportive liaison officer, Terry, but always in fear that the secret of his past will be revealed.

Trigell's novel demonstrates both engaging story telling skills and artful skills in the craft of writing. Playing on the "Boy A" pseudonym, the book is broken into 26 chapters, working through the alphabet from A-Z. Jack is an endearing character; we see him as an innocent show more discovering the world afresh and as someone who is seeking to do things properly rather than looking for opportunities for wickedness. However, the book is a tragedy. For a happy ending, stop reading somewhere round about "L" if you can manage to resist the lure of the plot.

For UK readers in particular, the story has obvious similarities with the murder of toddler, Jamie Bulger, by two ten-year old boys in 1993. If there is one question the book asks as it traces the wreckage of lives it is whether society is any less monstrous than the killers. I prefer to read books where redemption wins out but came away from Boy A impressed with a powerful piece of literature that I think will prove to have enduring merit.

[Also published on my blog] show less

Boy A is an uncomfortable, spiky and angry book that asks awkward questions of the reader, their attitude towards capital punishment and whether some crimes are unforgivable. It also shows the difference between what we are on the inside and the face we present to the outside world.

Jack's a sympathetic lead character, eager to forget the past and move on. Trigell excels in portraying the naivety of someone who's missed out on the socialisation of teenage years and early adulthood, the joy Jack takes in things the rest of us take for granted. We're actually left unsure as to exactly what were Jack's actions as 'Boy A'in the child murder that led to his conviction, thereby preventing a judgement being passed, although it's made very clear show more that he is, to an extent, the victim of his circumstances. And we also see the motivations of those who bring him to where he is, how much of their actions are shaped by self interest to the point where the first people to care for him for altruistic reasons are his workmates and lover. We're shown how all the potential happiness in his new start is ruined by the thought of his past life catching up or what would happen if people found out. It's tainted by that one terrible action in his past and how all this gradually ruins the life he's trying to build and, to a greater or lesser extent, the lives of those around him. It's almost a tragedy in the classical sense as there's an air of inevitability about the way events unfold, first in his childhood and then upon his release.

There's the odd narrative contrivance (such as the computer ability of Terry's son, alhtough the motivation, as with every character, is solid) and the author does occasonally lay Jack's victimhood on with a trowel (such as the jury member with the fading NF tattoo). Nevertheless, there's the ring of truth as all the characters are well motivated and their actions never feel contrived or out of character, although the voices of the narrators in different chapters could perhaps have been a little more distinctive.

It's reassuring to know that their are authors out there such as Trigell who are willing to tackle difficult issues in such an intelligent manner. Boy A is an often painful, upsetting and relentless read, a knife twisting in society's wounds, questioning the ability of humans to forgive or forget. It left me uncomfortable and questioning my own attitudes, a definite credit to the author. Recommended. show less