#Ockham NZ Awards MY CHOICE winner Fiona Kidman
- Author: Dame Fiona Judith Kidman DNZM OBE (1940)
- Title: This Mortal Boy
- Published: 2018
- Genre: historical fiction
- List of Challenges 2019
- Monthly reading plan
- #AWW2019
- @AusWomenWriters
- Trivia: 2019 Winner of The New Zealand Booklovers’ Prize for Fiction
- Trivia: 2018 Shortlisted for the NZ Heritage Book Awards
- Trivia: 2019 Shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
- #TheOckhams will be awarded 14 May 2019.
- @PenguinBooks_NZ
Quickscan:
- On 05 December1955
- …New Zealand’s second-last execution occurred.
- The victim was a young Irishman,
- Albert (Paddy) Black…a bog-trotter.
- He knifed a man, Johnny McBride…bit of a rough diamond,
- in a bar-room brawl 26 July 1955
- …called the “juke-box murder”.
- Public revulsion at his execution was a major force
- ..in abolishing the death penalty in 1961.
- Black was convicted of murder and executed.
- Yet there were clear signs that his trial
- …was a severe miscarriage of justice.
- Main characters:
- Albert (Paddy) Black Irish, aka Shaun Donavan (killer)
- Alan Keith Jacques English, aka Johnny McBride (victim)
- Setting change: 1955 Belfast Ireland
- Flashback: Belfast, parents, childhood, WW II, sailing to life in NZ
- Setting: NZ Aukland, Wellington, Auckland Parliament House
- Mt Eden Prison NZ (arrested awaits trial),
- Ye Olde Barn cafe (crime scene)
- Setting: Station Hotel Aukland NZ (where jury is staying during trial)
- Setting: Aukland Court house – jury’s decision (ch 19)
- Setting: Mount Eden Prison…execution
Conclusion:
- This story is based on facts that are in no way
- sentimentalized by the author.
- This Mortal Boy reads like a Greek Tragedy
- …we know what is going to happen in the last act.
- The platform on the gallows will actually be a trapdoor.
- The book is a stark report about a young boy who
- made a mistake and paid the ultimate price, his life.
- Strong point:
- Research
- Dame Fiona Kidman has studied the trial transcripts
- …read copies of Albert Black’s letters to friend his Peter
- ..and visited Ireland to research the public records in Belfast
- (births, marriages, deaths).
- Chapter 27 is and eyewitness report of the execution by J. Young.
- (…a very confronting read)
- Trial witnesses, lawyers and members of the jury are fictional.
- Strong point:
- Kidman examines history with a fine tooth comb.
- She supports her story with references
- to Australian politicians, The Mazengarb 1954 (report on moral delinquency)
- …and the hanging of Fred Foster July 1955 for the ‘Milk Bar Murder’.
- Strong point:
- The jury
- In chapter two Kidman takes time to
- …introduce the reader to the 12 men on the jury.
- At first I thought Kidman was being too detailed.
- But later I realized why it is important to know the
- social class (job, education) of these men.
- Only then can we understand the decision making
- process about Albert Black:
- guilty or not guilty.
- Three jurors add doubt to the arguments for guilty.
- I was captivated and drawn in as these jurors try to
- remain staunchly against a guilty verdict.
- You will read what happened
- ….that pushed the verdict to guilty!
- Weak point of audio book:
- The singing!
- I’d rather read that someone is humming or singing a song
- …than to actually hearing it. #Distracting.
- Strong point:
- Ch 14 – Oliver Buchanan, lawyer
- We imagine that the case is open and shut but…
- Buchanan works tirelessly to help his client
- …avoid the death penalty.
- There is something missing in this case
- …but he cannot find the piece.
- Buchanan is interested in
- what happened before Paddy stabbed Johnny
- …that can prove that this crime was based on an accident.
- Buchanan quotes Thomas Hardy:
- “…for every bad..there is a worse.”
Last thoughts:
- Capital punishment…is such a contentious issue.
- While reading this book I was forced to think
- about the consequences of this policy.
- #Heartwrenching
- MY CHOICE to win Ockham 2019 for Fiction.
Quote:
- Juror – Arthur university lecturer discusses… life? or death ?
- “…are you all so far beyond reproach
- that you have a right to make this decision?
- I’m not sure that I am.”
4 Comments
Post a comment
I interviewed Fiona Kidman a few years ago at the Belfast Book Festival and she was a lovely, inspiring woman.
LikeLike
Winner!! Ockham Literary Award for Fiction 2019
LikeLike