Book Report: Boy A

Boy A
By Jonathan Trigell

This is a 'promotional copy--not for resale' stolen off the top shelf at my local Cargo Largo. (Well, not stolen stolen--I did pay $1.50) Boy am I glad that store loves to rip people off an sell them things not meant to be sold individually.

From the back:
A is for Apple. B is for Bad Apple.
Jack has spent most of his life in juvenile institutions: he's about to be released with a new name, new job, and a new life. At 24, he is utterly innocent of the world, yet guilty of a monstorous childhood crime.
To his new friends, he is a good guy with occational flashes of unexplained violence. To his girlfriend, he is strangely naive and unreachable. To his case worker, he's a victim of the system and of media-driven hysteria.
And to himself, Jack is on permanent trial: he struggles to start from scratch, forget the past, become someone else.

First sentence:
He's seen noses broken over less: the fag butts on the pavement have been carelessly tossed, five drags left in them.

I loved this book. Like, really loved it. Never wanted it to end. Was fascinated. Awed.

This story starts with a boy named Jack (a named he picked for himself, after being only 'Boy A' for so many years) being released from imprisonment into the real world. He is being set up in a witness-protection like program for his own safety, because if his true identity is ever discovered, he will surely be hunted and killed for a crime he committed that was so horrible, it shook the nation. The details of the crime itself are breadcrumbs scattered throughout the story, tidbits dropped in sparingly but perfectly, so that a handful of words draws a horrifying picture and lures the reader along for more. Scenes from Jack's childhood are painted the same way, starting with Jack's isolation from other children, the bullying and meaness that created an outcast, then the relief when Jack discovers a friend in the dark and often cruel Boy B. The two become friends (if you could call them that) and through what may have started as innocent little-boy activities quickly become sinnister and utterly evil. There is a true sense of foreboding in these pages, a sense that something horrific is being born.

"Get something to hold it down, quickly," he said.
B appeared, with their digging tools. He slid A's flat wood beneath the eel, and pushed the point of the nail just slightly into its oily back. Then, with a half-brick, he banged it home. The eel hissed wetly, and bucked its head upwards, as the nail passed through it and into the wood. Fatty blood splattered. One small drop went in B's mouth.
The eel fought for an hour, while its tormentors shared A's pack-lunch. They always shared. B got free school meals, but the scrap-saving, flap-armed dinner ladies didn't do take-outs. He tried to feed the eel a bit of Mighty White crust, only for some reason it wasn't hungry. It twisted around to bite at the nail though, tearing the hole in itself larger and larger, yet still unable to get free.
When it finally gave up the ghost, B ripped it from the board and threw it into the Byrne. It sank for a moment, and then inexplicably rose to the surface again. They pelted it with stones like when they had the jonny. But it wouldn't to away. Eventually it drifted out of sight.

Simultaneously, the story progresses in real time as Jack struggles to fit in to the false life he's been given. He befriends his coworker, meets his first girlfriend, and struggles to keep all the lies straight.

This is the house that Jack built. This hide of twigs and leaves. A little extra camouflage added every day. Another little sprig of lie, that he must remember and believe, or die. He can't do anything other than stay inside his hut, and hope he's safe from prying eyes. Except to pray, if he still can, that no one kicks the sand foundation. And no one checks the brittle sticks that support the straw roof. And most of all, that no one huffs and puffs.

Each chapter is named and ordered alphabetically, and the view points change between that of Jack, his therapist/case worker, and once, a female therapist who worked with Boy A and Boy B during the trial. After working with these boys, the therapist goes home and sits in her yard to enjoy the weather and her son, and finds her son torturing insects. In this instance, there was a very kenetic feel to the emotions, as if the essence of evil is contagious or a dark poison that leeches through the air, tainting whomever it touches. This was a powerful, illustrative diversion from the main story line.

The style of writing is entrancing. Each word is perfect and well-placed, exact. Insightful.

The official rockets shoot up in clusters. They crackle like high amp rice-crispies as they fire. Explode into bright, life-loving, punk-rock colors. Then drift slowly downwards like destroyed worlds. Jack is entranced. He holds Shell's hand, but doesn't murmur a word while volley after volley lights up the sky. When it's all over, the darkness looks more dark because of what it's known.


As the story progresses, Jack's noose tightens. His cover begins to unravel, his fears play out. Already an isolated young man, the climax finds him completely alone through a very clever play of vengence from a character never expected. Contemplation (and the carrying out) of this downfall is heartwrenching and Jack's destruction is heartbreaking and gripping. The final paragraph mirrors a passage from earlier in the book, landing this story gently and leaving the reader amid the ripples of amazement, sorrow, and wonder. This is very much an exploration of evil and how it comes to be born, and I enjoyed the thoughts it provoked.

Terry's felt the power of that perverse desire. He believes that everyone has. He can still picture himself as a child, sat on a bus, biting his tongue to stop himself shouting out: 'You're all fucking spastics', at a group of happy, helpless, handicapped. Even as an adult, he's had to fight the need to take his wife, by force, when he found out about her affair. Yes, rape. Just to show her that he could, not from desire, just to wipe that bloody smirk away. Does that mean he's evil? Or is it that without those urges he could not be good? If being good is a denial of the bad then those we deem evil are not worse, they are weaker. And if goodness means anything at all, surely it means the strong helping the weak. That's what Terry thinks.


A line of praise on the back cover reads: 'A modern day immortality tale...delivered with a horrific sense of foreboding.'

I think this describes Boy A prefectly. Horrificly foreboding, a slow unfolding of events that keeps you by the throat even as things become almost too painful to bear. Excellent read.

Five out of five stars for imagery, illiciting emotion, originality, realism, and overall captivation.