Boy A Read online

  And if he sinks, well then it just wasn’t meant to be. It’s a beautiful day, down beside the sea, and he feels free. Empty of guilt and sadness. He’s known love, he’s had a job, he’s made friends, had sex, saved a life. He’s had his day in the sun and it’s still shining. There could be no better time or place to end than this. And that’s supposed to be the way to go: drowning. If you’re going to go, then that’s the way to do it. He can picture himself, over-brimmed with salt water, spiralling downwards to a sandy bottom. If the waves taste like they smell, then it won’t be so bad. That’s the way to do it.

  He climbs the railing and swings his bad leg over first. He wants to be quick, before anyone spots him. Doesn’t want to be saved or stopped from reaching his boat. He’s seen which one he wants. It’s not the biggest or the grandest of the craft, but it’s the one that looks the best to him. It’s the one he can imagine himself curled within.

  The trainers would hinder his attempts to swim. He doesn’t want to give sinking an unfair advantage. So he kicks them off. One. Two. Watches them plunge into the sea. Then he toes his socks off too. They take longer to sail down. Show him the true distance. But he’s confident he’ll survive the fall. It’s just the drowning that might get him.

  He stands on the lower rung of the railings, savouring the moment he needs to get his balance. His launch outwards almost takes him by surprise. No count down. He just jumps.

  It’s a glorious leap, there’s no doubt about it. Framed in the sun. Far away from this last outpost of a country that hates him. Up above the pier. Rising higher than he started.

  And, like he suspected, there is a moment, when ascension has stopped but before the drop, where everything pauses. Neither falling nor flying. An instant where time is frozen. It doesn’t last as long as in the cartoons. It could be less than a second. But it’s long enough to consider, with arms outstretched and bare feet together, if it might be better not to struggle anymore.

  A Guide for Reading Groups

  Research shows that children who commit murder (of whom there have been around 100 in the UK in recent times) and other violent crimes have themselves suffered abusive, neglected and brutalised childhoods. To what degree, if at all, can suffering ever be a mitigating factor in crime?

  Does Jack’s own childhood in any way explain his involvement in the crime?

  Does Terry’s relationship with Zeb affect how he deals with Jack, and vice versa? Is Terry a good father?

  How much responsibility for Jack’s fate lies with the media? How much is of his own making?

  Society struggles with its attitudes towards childhood, and child killers are arguably portrayed as even more ‘evil’ than adults who commit similar crimes. Why do we struggle to understand these acts?

  It can be argued that fiction has a role to play, in allowing us to discuss subjects that are taboo or uncomfortable. How does Boy A fit with this argument?

  Boy A prompts questions of liberal versus conservative values, particularly when it addresses our preconceptions of child offenders. Is this liberalism as damaging as the mob mentality of the tabloid press?

  It can be argued that Jack’s release from prison is a rebirth, and his experiences of the world are naïve. How does this device colour our perceptions of Jack?

  To what degree is Boy A a classic coming of age novel? Through Jack’s extreme difference, are we also examining what it means to be a ‘normal’ young man in Britain today?

  We do not gain any insight into the narrative voice or perspective of Angela’s family and their loss. If the author had included their point of view for balance, would our feelings towards Jack change?

  The end of the novel is often controversial among reading groups for its apparent ambiguities. But there may be clues throughout the novel – particularly in Jack’s final body position and in the Butch and Sundance references in the previous chapter – as to what the author intends us to believe about Jack’s chances of survival when the freeze-frame continues. What are these clues?

  Does Jack learn anything by the end of the book? Is his character ‘redeemed’ in any way? And what about our redemption as readers? Do we get the ending we want/deserve?