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

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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 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 supe

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I'm adding an extra couple of paragraphs retrospectively, because I read something that pointed out that a review should really describe a book rather than be opinion. Well, actually, when I read a review, I like a bit of opinion, if it's someone I trust (and, in fact, the reverse), it gives me an

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idea of whether or not I'll like the book, as the blurb on the back of a book is inevitably inaccurate. That said, this person had a point, so:

Boy A is the story of a boy convicted of committing a horrifying crime with a friend when a child and who consequently has lived most of his life in young offenders prison. It begins with his release back into the community, now a young man renamed Jack, and deals with his re-integration. We watch him trying to start again and adjust back into normal life, whilst having to hide his true identity from his new friends, girlfriend and aquaintances. We watch the conflicts this induces, whether it is possible to live normally with such a huge secret in your past. At the same time, we get glimpses back into his early life, leading up to his imprisonment and what actually happened and why.

Well, I started out finding the rather over-dramatic writing style irritating (I realise this was probably to emphasise the grittiness of the story, but it didn't work for me), however, it didn't take me very long to get over that. This is a gripping book and a very easy read - I read it the day I received it. I would say though that while I found the way the topic is explored interesting, the story sad and the people and their reactions (_mostly_) very believable, I never really found I believed the story and how it pans out itself. The true tragedy never really came across to me.

An interesting book, which was very readable, but not life-changing.

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Another retrospective as I have just seen a rerun of the C4 adaptation of this book, which was, in my opinion (several months after reading the book), very good and, after all, time makes all the difference to first impressions.

So, retrospectively, the book obviously made much more of an impression than I gave it credit for - the story was still very fresh in my mind and still upset me just as much as it did last time - leaving me just as undecided as to where my sympathies lay as when I read it.

I still stick with my original rating (above average, but not special) - principally because the writing style _did_irritate me, as did some of the plot contrivances, but I would recommend it not just as a 'good read' but as thought provoking too. Above all, this story is about the truth and how honesty is not, but maybe should be, the best policy - make your own mind up!

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I confess, I failed to finish this book. It's not badly written - in fact, there is a hallucinatory clarity in places, with - in some cases, rather unpleasant - images sort of swimming up in front of you whether you really want them or not. It's very visual, very acutely observed, but just didn't

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work for me, possibly in part because there are things in here that make me feel obscurely guilty for having had a 'normal' childhood.

Those are the things, of course, that lead into a degree of sympathy with protaganist Jack, despite being fairly sure you are going to see him do something horrible, both in the interspersed flashbacks and the ongoing 'now'. And that, together with the inescapably visual nature of the book, is why I just can't continue reading. If the bit with the eel can make me gag, I don't want to know how this is going to pan out at either end of the timeline.

Sorry, Jack - you're on your own.

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"Boy A", the first novel by author Jonathon Trigell tells the story of Jack, a young man recently released for prison for a murder he committed as a child with another boy ("Boy B"). The story is clearly based on the Jamie Bulger case where two young boys murdered a three year-old toddler.



As in

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the factual case, Boy A is given a new identity, "Jack" and a job. He struggles to live an adult life but manages to make friends, find a girlfriend, and even become something of a local hero after saving someone's life. However, the threat of his real identity being revealed constantly hangs over him.



The story is divided into 26 fairly short chapters (one for each letter of the alphabet) which include Jack's current life, flashbacks to the past and to the murder, as well as some chapters dealing with other characters, such as Terry, his social worker, the other boy involved, and his girlfriend Michelle.

Jack is clearly meant to be a sympathetic character, so the book raises important questions about whether he should be entitled to a normal life after serving his prison sentence. The book shows factors in his life that led to his predicament, though it does shy away somewhat from going into too much detail about the murder, and seems to place most of the blame on Boy B. I think if Jack was made more culpable, it would challenge the reader more by making it harder to feel sympathy for him. The book is well written, with some clever usage of language, such as phrases like "seamless sameness", though this doesn't always work - for example it took me a few seconds to realise "ladvert" was not a typo.

Overall, these are minor criticisms, and I enjoyed the book. Despite the grimness of the subject, I felt there was something quite optimistic about the story, probably due to the humanity of many of the characters.

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Boy A’ as much as I enjoyed watching the film adaptation for television a number of years ago. It isn’t a lengthy novel so it is never going to go into a massive amount of detail. There are reviews that I’ve read where people would like to see the book being

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about Boy B and I can see why as there would surely have been more meaty prose to write (a possible idea for a second novel?), however the information the author gives us about Boy A’s involvement makes it more worthwhile for me. At the critical point he could have stopped but he didn’t and whilst the crime isn’t made explicit – well obviously it resulted in murder but the bit before the murder – the reader is left to wonder over sexual assault or even rape. Although during the recount aspect of the novel, Boy A continually states he wasn’t involved it is left up to the reader to come to their own judgement.

It is certainly an easy book to read in terms of length and style and I loved the alphabetical chapter headings, fitted in well with the idea of Boy A and Boy B. Even though it is fiction there is the obvious impact real life events had on the ideas for the novel and for me this book gives you an insight into the thoughts about what goes on behind the scenes and how a new life is created for criminals who have served their sentence but need protection (and should they actually be given it but that is outside of the realms of a book review!). I found the relationship between Terry and Jack very interesting but wonder how much the boundaries between this professional relationship would come across in real life; he really did love Jack more than his own son.

A lot is crammed into such a small number of pages and it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if his identity hadn’t been worked out until much later on when he may have had a family – the implications there are so different to what Jack as the age he is in the novel faced. I also loved the ambiguity about who actually called the press. The reader is left to wonder so much.

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Fascinating look at a different perspective of a 'familiar' story - we hear the media side of things with child killers (and potential killers) but rarely do we get to hear the perspective of the child himself. Boy A has stepped onto a rollercoaster he can't get off, committed an act he can't undo,

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and his life will necessarily be changed by it. The book is an uncomfortable look at the way the world then treats him, and how he fits into his new life - or doesn't. A gripping read.

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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

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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 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.

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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

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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 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.

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This book is not the sort of book I would normally read. I found it slow to get into at first, but from about halfway through it started to grip me, although I never really got into it enough that I cared what happened to Jack in the end or got inside his head.

It opens with the release from prison

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of a child murderer, Boy A, and his attempts to rebuild his life under a new persona. The different chapters randomly flash back to the past or continue in the present, not only from Boy A's point of view but also from various other people in the story.

There is a strong sense of forboding, of the inevitability of the outcome all through the book.

It is sometimes a bit difficult to decipher whose story is being told from one chapter to another. It made me consider the point of view of the prisoner - the "criminal" labelled by the tabloids as totally evil and without redeeming features - the way everything is black and white rather than shades of grey. The way the victim is always portrayed as whiter than white and the criminal as evil incarnate. The author does a good job of debunking this.

I felt that the author was more comfortable describing the 70s/80s when Boy A was growing up - the sordid bullying, closed doors, don't talk about it sort of atmosphere of Boy A's childhood, and the prison scenes, than the awkward narrative of the first day in the digs and the descriptions of his new life in the present. The latter seemed much more stilted, shallow - but maybe that was deliberate, to emphasise Jack's unfamiliarity with this new world. To emphasise the superficiality of much of the present maybe, its MacDonalds and Nikes....

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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

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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 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.

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Boy A by Jonathan Trigell is a compelling story of the journey that a child might take when leaving prison in the body of an adult man.

The main character of this book has been convicted as a child of committing a horrible crime. As the story weaves back and forth between the past and present, we

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learn more and more details of the life of this Boy. We walk with him as he experiences so many childhood firsts in the shoes of an adult. The story is quite griping and fascinated me pretty much from cover to cover.

The greatest challenge I found with this novel was the manner in which it forced me to explore the concept of feeling compassion toward someone who has participated in a truly horrific act. In society we demonize (perhaps rightly so) those who have committed crimes. We put them into a comfortable box which we only open when we surf the news or watch a movie or television drama. Boy A pushes this issue right to the forefront of the readers attention and really enables one to walk in the many shoes of a young, confused ex-con.

Mr. Trigells writing style is both comfortable and a pleasure to read. He expresses concepts in such manners that are quite easy to understand on many levels, simple and complex. The book really flew by in absolutely no time at all (which was almost a disappointment).

The author chose an interesting style for naming chapters, using a letter of the alphabet to begin each. To a certain extent I found this a bit trite and silly. However, as the book captured my attention more and more, I eventually actually found myself looking forward to the name of the coming chapters. So perhaps the technique was a good one after all. Perhaps, in one hand, this enabled the reader to count the passage of the book in such a manner as an inmate might abstractly experience the passing of time behind bars.

SPOILER WARNING - STOP READING NOW...SKIP TO THE END... You have been warned....

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Unfortunately, as the book nears the conclusion, the author felt the need to tear apart the world that he had so carefully created for the rest of the story. I really do not understand what happened to the happy ending. I know that happy endings are not always realistic, but the are so lovely to read! I (for one) really enjoy when a book can just end nicely with the characters (at least the good guys) can all walk away in happy bliss, or something at least close thereof.

I do understand the need to express the brutal reality of how rough the world can be for those trying to rebuild a life. However, I simply would have preferred to see the main character allowed to continue in his happy life.

SPOILERS ENDED...

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So, in conclusion... I really loved this story. As I commented above, Boy A caused me to challenge my view of the world and entertained me much at the same time. Well done, Mr. Trigell!

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I received a copy of this book through the Librarything Early Review Program. Although I have always read a lot of crime and true crime I am not sure that having been left alone in a book shop this would have been one of the books I would have chosen for myself.

After a bit of thought I am sure that

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I necessarily enjoy this book but that would not really be a surprise considering the subject matter. I did however find the book strangely gripping - that is to say I find myself sat on a lunch time waiting out a blizzard in a Northern Costal car park trying to finish this book to see where it lead me.

Whilst I could empathise with the main characters I found it difficult to sympathise with their actions, they made choices in their lives and now they are facing the consequences and repercussions that follow us all. The fact that this book does not end with the literary ‘and they lived happily ever after’ was a refreshing change.

Although I finished this book a few days ago, some element of this story has remained with me, I will revisit this book I know.

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This is a great book, although quite painful reading so I'm not sure I can say that I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I read it.

Jack at twenty four years old has just been released from prison, he is in the company of Terry, his long assigned care officer, ahead he has a new life invented for him; only the name Jack did he choose for himself. But can he make a success of it? He has grown up in juvenile institutions having

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committee as a child, along with an accomplice, an horrendous crime. All seems to go well, he has work, makes good friends, even a girlfriend who loves him; yet he finds it a struggle to live as this invented person, and of course there are those, including the tabloid press, who cannot forget what happened in the past.

By introducing us to Jack as a young man before we know the extent of his crime, it is easy to accept him without judgement, and he comes across as a friendly, slightly naïve, but very likeable young guy. As we learn more about his unhappy upbringing, for we jump back and forth in time chapter by chapter, we are even more endeared to him. Having so endeared Jack to us, what subsequently transpires is all the more involving, for our heart goes out to the youngster and especially when everything appears to be falling apart for him.

The other characters are well drawn and very believable, including Terry, his devoted carer, his fun loving friends and workmates, and his attractive and slightly voluptuous girlfriend.

Jonathan Trigell writes eminently readable prose which captures just the right intimate mood. It is a thought provoking, cleverly yet subtly constructed story, with a touch of irony, and great humanity. Boy A is heart rending tale that could as easily be fact as fiction, and all the more moving for that.

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Two boys kill another child and become national hate figures. This is the story of one of those boys after he has been released with a new identity.

It is a difficult subject but nonetheless an interesting one. The narrative is split between Jack in his new life, the perspectives of other people

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(his social worker, his girlfriend, his father etc) and flashes back to the crime. No easy answers are offered here or excuses made for Jack, but I would say that at times Jack as he is in the present is prsented as too good to be true and the author seemed to be trying too hard to get our sympathy for him, which marred the book somewhat.

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Oh man what a good book!!! I won this book, almost by accident, and had no idea what I was getting myself into. While reading, I asked myself many questions:
Do I want Jack to be guilty? Would that make the story easier to grasp?
Do I blame Boy B? How do I feel about him?
Do I want Jack to tell his

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secret to Michelle?
Is Terry right about focussing his attention on Jack, rather than on his son?
Is the book trying to find an excuse for Jack's past? And so on.
Honestly, the book is very confusing and it puts a lot of standard values in a different light.
Again, I loved it.

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Boy A, the award-winning debut novel by Jonathan Trigell, is loosely based on a real murder case. A very young boy was led away from a shopping mall by two ten year olds who then murdered him. The two boys, first identified as Child A, and Child B, were tried for murder in adult court and sentenced

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to 8 years. Their case became an international sensation. I remember seeing the CCTV footage of the two boys leading James Bulger away on the evening news here in California. The sentence sparked outrage and was lengthened to 15 years by the British government before the European courts reduced it to the original 8 years. Boy Child A and Child B were released in 2001 and currently live under new identities on life licences, which means they can be returned to custody if at any time the British police determine they are a treat to public safety.

Jonathan Trigell uses the basic outline of the case in his novel Boy A to address the question of what to do with extremely violent children, but Boy A should not be viewed as a fictional telling of the case. Mr. Trigell said in an interview that he was intrigued by the idea of a young man in his twenties who is completely innocent of how the world works, and that this idea was the genisus for his novel. Boy A alternates between the present day, following what happens to the surviving boy, and flashbacks that deal with other points of view: Boy A's father, Boy B, Boy A's psychiatrist, among others. This makes it possible to give the reader a very sympathetic portrait of the young killer; we see how hard it is for him to face life outside of the institutions he's spent so much time in as well as how difficult his life both before and during the years he spent incarcerated was. This aspect of Boy A is fascinating reading. Mr. Trigell gives us an in-depth case study of Boy A that makes it clear how he ended up committing a murder at such a young age and forces us to examine what we believe should be done with such children. While he has done a horrific thing, Boy A is a child and remains one throughout the book.

Boy A begins to break down toward the end. There are too many plot contrivances and a finish that is essentially a grand car chase sequence, and the final ending, a cross between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The 400 Blows is a bit of a cop-out in my view. After 200 pages of intriguing psychological profile and character study, that was hard to put down although not much really happened, I thought it a shame that the last 50 pages relied on so many "exciting" plot developments. The true story, though mostly rumor, is much more interesting.

While not without its weaknesses, Boy A by Jonathan Trigell is an excellent read. The characters are well drawn and each add to the discussion of how Boy A ended up in prison and of what to do with such children once they are grown. It's a story that will stay with you after you've finished the book, that's for sure. I'm giving Boy A by Jonathan Trigell four out of five stars.

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Depressing and riveting. The truth will always find you.

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

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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 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!

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thoughtful and wistful...

Spoiler alert... I am not sure how much of the narrative is carried by the insinuations of innocence of Boy A in the story, how much you want to believe everything will work out for him as the story describes Boy B's character. I just finished Scaredy Cat by Marc Billingham

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which had a similar childhood folie a deux at it's heart; and the discovery that Boy A was guilty after all was not a real surprise, as I felt that he would not have seemed so repentant a character if he had not been guilty.
Despite the subject matter, an enjoyable read.

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Boy A participated in the commission of a heinous crime at the age of 9. Fifteen years later, he is released from custody, given a new identity, Jack Burridge, and sets about to build a life for himself.

He gets a job, makes friends, and gets a girlfriend. He keeps reassuring himself that he is

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'normal,' but the tabloids, knowing only that he has been released, but not his identity or location, scream that the public deserves to know where he is.

The book raises interesting issues about crimes committed by children and about the role the media plays in crime and punishment. It is a very quick read.

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I have wanted to read this book for a long time. It was well written; there was nothing in the writing that made me feel uncomfortable or irritated. The story was interesting and had echoes of the story of two boys in the UK who abducted and killed a young child. I really felt for the main

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character - I wanted him to succeed in his new life. He had appeared to have moved on and that prison had done its job. It has provoked my thinking in relation to how I would feel about being close to an individual who had committed a really terrible crime in their youth but had since 'done their time' and become an adult.

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