“Boy A” by Jonathan Trigell

“Boy A” by Jonathan Trigell won the 2004 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

The subject matter of this book does not make for comfortable reading. Two boys are found guilty of murdering another child and become national hate figures. The child known in the court case as Boy A serves the sentence given to him and is released from prison with a new identity.

The book jumps between the present day as Jack (as he is now known) tries to cope with the outside world and the past, his time in various institutions, his family life and finally his crime. We are also given brief glimpses of other people’s perspectives on the events; including his father, his case-worker, his psychologist and his former friend Boy B.

The characters and their actions do not inhabit a black and white world. I did find present day Jack a bit too good to be true at time and the good deeds he was able to do a bit unbelievable, but at least the author didn’t offer easy excuses for his past. The conclusion of the book had an awful inevitability about it, but I was still quite surprised at how it came about.

Given its topic, its not something that you could describe as an enjoyable read but it was brave enough to tackle a difficult subject.