This Mortal Boy
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An utterly compelling recreation of the events that led to one of the last executions in New Zealand.
Albert Black, known as the 'jukebox killer', was only twenty when he was convicted of murdering another young man in a fight at a milk bar in Auckland on 26 July 1955. His crime fuelled growing moral panic about teenagers, and he was to hang less than five months later, the second-to-last person to be executed in New Zealand.
But what really happened? Was this a love crime, was it a sign of juvenile delinquency? Or was this dark episode in our recent history more about our society's reaction to outsiders?
Black's final words, as the hangman covered his head, were, 'I wish you all a merry Christmas, gentlemen, and a prosperous New Year.' This is his story.
'A beautiful writer' - The Times
Winner of the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, the NZ Booklovers Award and the NZSA Heritage Book Award for Fiction.
Customer Reviews
Hanging around Auckland
4.5 stars
Author
Kiwi Dame Fiona Kidman is at the top of the literary heap across the ditch
Premise
Fictionalised account of the second last judicial hanging in NZ in 1955.
Plot
20 year old lad from Belfast comes to the Shaky Isles as a ten pound pom, soon after reimposition the death penalty by conservative government, and more general concern about the morals of young people, read bodgies and widgies. (They were thing here as well. Google it if you don’t believe me.) After an altercation in an Auckland milk bar over a girl (always the way), one dude gets dead and the other becomes “the jukebox killer,” rather than a jukebox hero (which was the Foreigner hit from the 80s.)
Our boy’s final words, as the hangman covered his head, were, 'I wish you all a merry Christmas, gentlemen, and a prosperous New Year.' What a guy!
Prose
Dame Fiona is an award winning poet as well as fiction writer, and it shows. Excellent portrait of the era and the place.
Character development
Doesn’t get much better than this. As usual, Dame Fiona writes well about women, but also does a damned good job with her male protagonist here.
Bottom line
Class act