#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:

1. On 05 December1955
2. …New Zealand’s second-last execution occurred.
3. The victim was a young Irishman,
4. Albert (Paddy) Black…a bog-trotter.
5. He knifed a man, Johnny McBride…bit of a rough diamond,
6. in a bar-room brawl 26 July 1955
7. …called the “juke-box murder”.
8. Public revulsion at his execution was a major force
9. ..in abolishing the death penalty in 1961.
10. Black was convicted of murder and executed.
11. Yet there were clear signs that his trial
12. …was a severe miscarriage of justice.
13. Main characters:
14. Albert (Paddy) Black Irish, aka Shaun Donavan (killer)
15. 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:

1. This story is based on facts that are in no way
2. sentimentalized by the author.
3. This Mortal Boy reads like a Greek Tragedy
4. …we know what is going to happen in the last act.
5. The platform on the gallows will actually be a trapdoor.
6. The book is a stark report about a young boy who
7. made a mistake and paid the ultimate price, his life.

 

1. Strong point:
2. Research
3. Dame Fiona Kidman has studied the trial transcripts
4. …read copies of Albert Black’s letters to friend his Peter
5. ..and visited Ireland to research the public records in Belfast
6. (births, marriages, deaths).
7. Chapter  27  is and eyewitness report  of the execution by J. Young.
8. (…a very confronting read)
9. Trial witnesses, lawyers and members of the jury are fictional.

 

1. Strong point:
2. Kidman examines history with a fine tooth comb.
3. She supports her story with references
4. to Australian politicians, The Mazengarb 1954 (report on moral delinquency)
5. …and  the hanging of Fred Foster July 1955 for the ‘Milk Bar Murder’.

 

1. Strong point:
2. The jury
3. In chapter two Kidman takes time to
4. …introduce the reader to the 12 men on the jury.
5. At first I thought Kidman was being too detailed.
6. But later I realized  why it is important to know the
7. social class (job, education) of these men.
8. Only then can we understand the decision making
9. process about Albert Black:
10. guilty or not guilty.
11. Three jurors add doubt to the arguments for guilty.
12. I was captivated and drawn in as these jurors  try to
13. remain staunchly against a guilty verdict.
14. You will read what happened
15. ….that pushed the verdict to guilty!

 

1. Weak point of audio book:
2. The singing!
3. I’d rather read that someone is humming or singing a song
4. …than to actually hearing it. #Distracting.

 

1. Strong point:
2. Ch 14 –  Oliver Buchanan, lawyer
   
3. We imagine that the case is open and shut but…
4. Buchanan works tirelessly to help his client
5. …avoid the death penalty.
6. There is something missing  in this case
7. …but he cannot find the piece.
8. Buchanan is interested in
9. what happened before Paddy stabbed Johnny
10. …that can prove that this crime was based on an accident.
11. Buchanan quotes Thomas Hardy:
12. “…for every bad..there is a worse.”

 

Last thoughts:

1. Capital punishment…is such a contentious issue.
2. While reading this book I was forced to think
3. about the consequences of this policy.
4. #Heartwrenching
5. MY CHOICE to win Ockham 2019 for Fiction.

 

Quote:

1. Juror – Arthur university lecturer discusses… life? or death ?
2. “…are you all so far beyond reproach
3. that you have a right to make this decision?
4. I’m not sure that I am.”