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“You have before you this mortal boy, one who has made a mistake, unintended, but a mistake nonetheless, with terrible consequences. Death is forever....The young occupy an uncertain universe. Mistakes can be made in the heat of the moment by the vulnerable young.”
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Thank you @gallicbooks for this review copy in return for an honest opinion.
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I was deeply moved by this haunting fictionalised account of a notorious case, the “Jukebox murder” in 1950s New Zealand. It is based on the true story of 18-year-old Albert “Paddy” Black, a “ten pound Pom” who emigrated from Belfast to Auckland in 1953. After being badly beaten up one night by violent young man Johnny McBride, Paddy stabs the other to death during a bar brawl. Paddy must face a judge and jury as an outsider in a country which has become fixated on demonising the young and enforcing morality in every aspect of society.
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This reimagining of the events that led to one of NZ’s last executions in 1955 is such a wonderfully compassionate, empathetic and humane account. It depicts Paddy as a gentle, kind and loving young man who was desperately homesick and made a terrible mistake. As the events surrounding the incident unravel, the author strongly conveys her deep sense of injustice and belief that this was an act of self-defence and the crime to answer should have been manslaughter, not murder. Therefore she puts to the reader that Paddy should not have received the death penalty.
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Fiona Kidman also skilfully evokes the places and people of the time - her descriptions of post-blitz Belfast and NI politics/community relations are perfect and her thorough research is evident. and the political tension and moralistic panic of right-wing governed New Zealand is palpable.
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I’m particularly drawn to books like this, which project that ethics and morality are not black and white, that humans are complex and there can be reasons and a context for dubious behaviour. This book delves deep into so many of those aspects: race, immigration, class, poverty, arrogance of youth and abuse.

The author has deservedly won prizes for this and is actually campaigning for the conviction of murder to be overturned. It is such a tragic story that depicts the fragility of life and yet my abiding impression is of how beautifully the author has weaved through the many forms of love with hope. Highly recommended

No date, no rating - DNF @ p75. I feel bad because this has had such high ratings but it just wasn’t for me. It felt overly descriptive and the overuse of people every other page just made it hard to keep up. I also struggled to keep up with the constant jumps in time. Maybe I’m just not the right audience for this book.

I have no clue where to start with this one, the themes included in the novel are highly sobering and heart-breaking in equal measures. Fiona Kidman has created a storyline that has taken a non - fictional backbone of the 'Jukebox Killer' and veiled it with a tasteful fictional story, while tackling the empathetic theme that is the death penalty. The main protagonist of This Mortal Boy takes place in 1955, where Albert (aka Paddy) Black, an Irish lad has emigrated from his family home in Belfast, Ireland to Auckland, New Zealand during a time of violence and teen rebellion. The focus of the narrative is on the tail spin of the murder of Alan Jacques, where Paddy has been found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

What's different about this book? I hear you ask, well the way that This Mortal Boy has been penned is from the defendant and his family's point of view. During a trial and sentencing, the focus and sympathy is aimed at the victim but within this novel we see the rippling affects on the parents, especially the mother of Paddy as well as himself. The dialogue is extremely emotive and thought provoking when it comes to the minute details of the trial, evidence and sentence. The court information included in the book is non - fictional and quite harrowing especially when the act of murder itself is touched upon and the events that led up to it. To me, it felt that due to Paddy being a 'outsider' the judge and jury had already decided that he was guilty of murder before they had heard the evidence. This felt like a stab to the gut because a mother lost her son because of plain prejudice - extremely humanising and eye opening.

The events begins to unravel from page one, where we get to know Paddy as a family man, who is kind, thoughtful with a super strong bond with his youngest brother, he completely dotes on him. The pace build to a attentive climax that tissues will be 100% needed for. I found This Mortal Boy is a captivating, heart strings tugging novel that makes you ponder whether two wrongs make a right? When reading about the circumstances of Paddy's execution, it makes you see the flip side of the picture, not just the victim's side where you can't help but whole-heartingly sympathise. The sequence of events are unchronological as it flips between the multiple point of views but it really works because you get to see the development from all corners. The information, court documents and accounts included drives a path straight to what seems like an a miscarriage of justice, which I can't help but agree with. Was paddy on trial for murder, or nearly because he wasn't a New Zealand born individual? What I didn't realise until I fell down a Twitter sized hole, was that Fiona Kidman is actually working to overturn this conviction which is amazing!

Fiona has sensitively approached the subject of the death penalty, although I did surf many waves of emotion but mainly I was frustrated about what Paddy endured as well as his parents turmoil that they couldn't reach him. The timeline that This Mortal Boy spans is from 1953 to 1955, during this time we had an insight into the inner workings of his family life, as well as the turbulent ordeal that lead to both Jacques' and Paddy's deaths. Overall this is an interesting read that I would highly recommend to lovers of fictional non - fiction, as well as reading around the subject afterwards. Completely broke my heart, this book will stay will me for a really long time - it's beautifully and sensitively written. Truly loved it.