Once he would have wished them to follow the law, as he has done, but now he hopes they will not. The law, as it stands at this moment, seems cruel and unjust, a carapace for power and revenge, designed by men who have been to war and can’t let the past go; must hunt down enemies for the rest of their lives.
This Mortal Boy is a solid book. It won’t go into the list of my favorite-mind-blowing books, but it is good. Based on the true story of Albert “Paddy” Black, one of the last men condemned to the death penalty in New Zealand, Kidman recreates the events that led to his execution.
Black is a young man -actually almost a teenager- from Ireland that migrated to New Zealand in search of a better life. In the first half of the book, Kidman follows two timelines. In the first one, she recreates the trial and Paddy’s time in jail from the perspective of the people involved in the process – his family, lawyers, witnesses, jurors, the prison warden, and guards. In the second, she tells the story of Paddy from the point when he decides to emigrate to the moment when he commits the crime, at which both timelines merge into one.
As I said before, the book is well written but it did not blow my mind. It was easy to read and the story had a good pace, but it was nothing spectacular. However, there are two things I really enjoyed about this book. The first is Paddy’s development as a character – from a hopeful teenager to a rebellious and nostalgic young man that misses his homeland and finally is forced to evolve into a man in peace with dying. The second, how Kidman deals with the topic of the death penalty. Each character involved in the first timeline – besides Paddy, which shows the powerlessness of the condemned – has a different opinion on the matter. But through these characters, Kidman also shows how it is a topic that is rarely detached from other issues, in this case, xenophobia and fear of change. And we cannot help but wonder, would Paddy be hanged if he were a Kiwi? or a rich young man? or anything else than a poor migrant from Ireland?
About Fiona Kidman
Fiona Kidman was born in Hawera New Zealand in 1940. She is a very active member of the literary community in her country, serving as president of PEN and the New Zealand Book Council. In 1988, she founded the Fiona Kidman Creative Writing School. This Mortal Boy won the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize in 2018.
Other books written by New Zealander women:
We only recommend books we’ve read
What books do you recommend? Please let us know in the comment section!
New Zealand initiatives and projects that support and empower girls and women
GirlBoss
GirlBoss New Zealand was founded in 2015 with the mission to close the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership. Through their network, they empower confident, resilient, future-ready, young women to lead and change the world. Among their activities, they organize workshops designed to demonstrate the real reasons STEAM remains male-dominated and equip young women to powerfully impact their communities. The program was founded by Alexia Hilbertidou. when she was 16 and in 2016 she won the Young Leader Award, an award given to the most influential New Zealand woman under the age of 25.
The Map of Fiction by Women 