Overview

In 1993 toddler James Bulger was beaten to death by two ten-year-old-boys. In the wake of this brutal crime, came one of the most public and shocking trials in living memory. Written in Morrison's supple, beautiful prose As If is a passionate, first-hand testimony of the Bulger case. It is a book about the nature of children, the meaning of childhood innocence and the state of the world we live in today.

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9781847084170

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Reviews

A remarkable, indispensable book * Sunday Telegraph * Blake Morrison attended the trial and has written a lyrical personal and intensely painful account of what he heard and felt... This is an important, and, in the true sense of the word, dreadful book. -- Beryl Bainbridge * Evening Standard * Morrison's rich, deep humanity bestows upon this book a rare honesty of tone and of thought which the subject hugely deserves... out of his anxiety and compassion, he has produced a book which is both brave and bathed in mature wisdom. -- Brian Masters * Mail on Sunday * This is a brave book, full of compassion and pity not just for the obvious people - the tiny victim, his parents - but for everyone involved, and underlying the struggle to discover 'why' is a compassion too for the state of childhood both remembered and observed. Beautifully written. -- Margaret Foster * Literary Review * As If is the mature, considered and very personal response of one man to a tragic act. It is what our media should have given us... Morrison's voice is, as ever, eloquent with both passion and intelligence. -- A.L. Kennedy * Scotsman * Very finely written... supple, densely allusive, glittering prose. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Sunday Times * Morrison brings to the case an uneasy conscience which insists that nothing is black and white... he exposes the inability of an adult tribunal to deal with such young defendants. -- Joan Smith * Financial Times * Blake Morrison is interested in the fundamental question of why the two young boys killed another child... he has contributed greatly to the debate and his thought-provoking book should be read by all those who have a serious interest in the vital process of reform. * The Times *

Author Information

Blake Morrison was born in Yorkshire. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Dark Glasses and The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper; a children's book, The Yellow House; critical studies of the Movement and Seamus Heaney; and is co-editor of The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry. His bestselling memoir And when did you last see your father? won the Waterstone's/Esquire/Volvo Award for Non-Fiction, and the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography in 1993. He lives in London.

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