Shortly before I sat down to write this book, I lost two people central to my life. Within the space of a few weeks, my mother and younger sister passed away. It was a dark time. Death became a part of me. It influenced every thought and feeling, and that included the kind of story I wanted to tell.
In Boy Kills Man, I had no idea whether such a short rage against unfairness and injustice would ever see the light of day. My previous novels were light-hearted comedies, and yet this was something I had to write. It’s not about grief but inevitability. Quite simply, I wanted to explore how it felt to be in possession of a gun at a formative time of life. In a heartbeat, that weapon would come to heighten your awareness of the world around you and ultimately shape your destiny. In my mind, that seemed no different to living with a terminal illness. No matter what, it gets you in the end.
Ten years on, I still don’t think of this as a bleak book. The narrator is a minor. He’s at an age where death is not on his radar. Life is everything, even in a region of the world at a time when all the odds are stacked against him. So when the means to make things happen presents itself, he seizes the opportunity.
After six weeks of intense writing, I remember finishing the last sentence as if it were yesterday. Straight away, I had an urge to leave my desk to get some air. It was a warm, clear afternoon. I sat on a bench and stayed there for an hour. It felt good to be outside.
Over the course of a decade, many people have humbled me with their passion for this book. I should like to thank Philippa Milnes-Smith and David Godwin, Emily Thomas and Venetia Gosling, Honor Wilson-Fletcher, Kirsty Mclachlan, Mary Byrne, Elena Sanchez (for the colour), Melvin Burgess, Emma Whyman, Sarah Odedina and all at Hot Key Books for this anniversary edition.