Tag Archives: Andrea Elliott

About A Son by David Whitehouse recounts the aftermath of the murder of 20-year-old Morgan Hehir who was stabbed to death while he was on a night out in Nuneaton in Warwickshire on 31 October 2015. It’s a true crime book, but not written in the way that you might typically expect from the genre. Whitehouse has turned the Hehir family’s story into a really affecting piece of creative non-fiction. It is told in the second person from the perspective of Morgan’s father, Colin, based on his diaries and memories of the period following Morgan’s death. As well as processing grief and sitting through the trial of Morgan’s killers, the book also deals with the frustrating bureaucracy of the criminal justice system, and Colin’s attempts to persuade Apple to unlock Morgan’s phone so he could access his photos and music. ‘About A Son’ is a really exceptional portrait of an extraordinary event happening to the most ordinary of families, and it is very likely to appear on my Books of the Year list. Continue reading →