Non-fiction book of the month: The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale. Read the answers back from Kate!

[SorchaMumsnet]

Our non-fiction book choice for June is by a modern master of the genre, Kate Summerscale. Author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, her latest page-turner promises to be just as fascinating.

The Wicked Boy is the gripping true story of a horrifying Victorian murder case: that of Robert Coombes, a 13-year-old boy on trial for the murder of his own mother. Whilst the reader is not spared the details of this gruesome crime, the book is about much more than a cold-blooded killing. Summerscale carefully examines each of the contributing factors to the crime, to great effect. To find out more and apply for your copy of this beguiling and brilliant book, head to the giveaway page.

Kate will be answering questions about The Wicked Boy and her other books, post yours here by 19 July. We'll put up answers to 15 of the best questions in August.

You don't have to win a copy to take part in the discussion or ask Kate a question. Everyone is welcome to come and discuss the book. If you miss out on a free one, you can buy a copy.

This giveaway is now closed.

Thank you for my copy of The Wicked Boy. I found it to be an interested read. It must be incredibly difficult to sift through the amount of material that is needed for such a book and decide what really did happen. I can not but have doubts about the accuracy of some of the accounts though. It seems incredible that John Fox was not aware that there was a body upstairs. Was he really so 'trusting, kindly'? I cannot say I ever thought Robert was absolutely 'wicked'.

Do you think that Robert and Nattie would have had better or worse lives if the murder had not been committed?
Would Nattie still have been a ship's stoker and died from lung cancer?
Would Robert have emigrated and had such an important role in Harry Mulville's life?

I loved this book. It felt like a bit of a slow burn at first (in a good way). I liked the restraint of the prose style, and the later parts of the story were mind-blowing. Full of hope and redemption - I think. I can't help but wonder to what extent Robert felt redeemed.

Like pp, I'm curious as to what Kate Summerscale thinks was actually happening in the house in the run-up to snd aftermath of the killing.
And - to what extent was Robert influenced by his experiences in Broadmoor?

Thank you - it's a book I will be recommending to many.

Thank you for the copy I received. I am a little slow to the party having just finished reading it. The first book I have read in about 12 months.

The Wicked Boy was not necessarily the light hearted novel I would choose for summer reading, but it was definitely engrossing. Possibly the most interesting for me was the facts about social history woven through the narrative. I was really surprised about the conditions at Broadmoor for example.

I'm still completely undecided on my opinion of Robert and Nattie, how wicked or not they really were. It was a different time and a different place to I live in and I find it hard to place my sensibilities over theirs and come to any sensible opinion.

The detail of the research was excellent and once I have read something light and trashy I will be trying another of Kate Summerscale's books.

Although this is classed as non fiction, I found it as exciting as a thriller! What a window into Victorian morality and compassion. God knows how Kate felt meeting folk who actually knew the main characters. A true tale of forgiveness. Very moving!

Thanks for my copy of the book The Wicked Boy. It was informative and thought-provoking but a little repetitive and tedious in places. The prologue left me perplexed until the last few chapters. I would have liked to have seen more images dotted throughout the book as opposed to batches of images, I felt the second batch of images were poorly positioned in the book. I think I might have enjoyed the story more if it had been written in reverse order.

Thank you very much for The Wicked Boy. I don't often read historical books so it was a change for me. It was very well researched and that made it a great insight into life in those days. At the start of the book I thought Robert might have been hung for his crime so was really glad that life improved for him so much after Broadmoor. I would recommend it to others

Hi all - glad to see so many of you enjoying The Wicked Boy. I was completely gripped by Robert's story too. Sorry for the delay - here are Kate's answers to your questions!

@FoxInABox

I imagine this research must have been very difficult given the subject matter was over one hundred years old, I would love to know how long the research for the book took?

The book took three years to complete. I started to write the story after a year of research, and then I continued to seek out new information as I worked out what else I needed to know to make sense of it all.

@FoxInABox

What drew you to the Coombes story?

I was fascinated by Robert Coombes himself, and the puzzle of why he murdered his mother. His behaviour immediately after the killing was particularly compelling. He and his brother Nattie lived in the house alongside the corpse for 10 days, taking trips to the cricket, the seaside, the theatre. Until the body was discovered, they seemed to be in a weird, suspended state, poised between innocence and corruption, childhood and adulthood. I wanted to know whether Robert was a boy with no feelings, or whether something else was going on.

@RoastieToastieReastie

I'd like to know what fascinates Kate about the Victorian era and whether she's always been interested in this period of history (given her other books in the same era)?

Many of my favourite novels were written in this era - books by the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Wilkie Collins - and I think that stories and ideas from this time continue to shape the way we think and feel today. The period also shapes my life in concrete ways: the building I live in is Victorian, as are the train lines on which I travel, many of the institutions in which I do my research. The 19th century feels close enough to imagine from within, yet far enough away to observe from outside.

@RoastieToastieReastie

I'd also like to know... whether she had followed in the footsteps by visiting any of the places in the book and what it felt like being there knowing what had gone on?

I love visiting the places I am researching. I tramped about West Ham, where the murder was committed, looking for the churches, schools, shops, streets and parks that the Coombes brothers knew. It is often spine-tingling to go to a place and find that a part of the story and the past still so tangibly exists. It reminds me of the reality of what I am investigating. To trace Robert’s life, I also travelled to Southend-on-Sea, to Broadmoor, to the site of a Salvation Army colony in Essex, and finally to Australia, where he made a life for himself after the First World War. Here, I found that the past was still alive in an emotional sense, that a story from long ago could have a powerful effect on people’s feelings.

@Imfinehowareyou

1) Kate, did you enjoy the research more than writing the book?

The research is often more fun - I lose myself in the material and I love the excitement of making discoveries - but I never truly understand the story (or my interest in it) until I’m writing. So the writing is more difficult and ultimately more satisfying.

@Imfinehowareyou

2) Do you wish you hadn't told Harry's children about Robert's past?

I was sorry to cause distress to the family, but I believe that at least one of Harry’s children was moved by the fact that Robert had been able to do such a good thing for their father despite the darkness of his past. To me, and I think to her, the fact of the murder only enhanced the decency he showed in later life.

@minsmum

My question is how do you choose which subject to write about, there must be any number of incidents that have happened like this over the years? Presumably you only know about their later life after you have made the decision to write the book.

I choose stories that are mysterious and intriguing enough to hold my interest, yet well-documented enough to be told in a vivid way. It’s a tricky balance. In this case I committed myself to writing the book when I discovered that Robert had served as a soldier after his 17 years in Broadmoor. But the biggest twist in the story - the events in Australia after the war - I didn’t learn about until I was halfway through the research.

@minsmum

Sorry second question - I assumed that children who murdered would be dealt with more severely in that era than in the present. Were you surprised that they weren't?

I was astonished that the jury showed such pity towards Robert and gave a merciful verdict. I had assumed that he would be simply condemned as evil, as he was in some parts of the press. I was even more amazed to learn that the staff of Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylum treated its inmates - adults and children alike - with such kindness.

@Noideaatall

There also doesn't seem to be much general sense of horror about the crime in the neighbourhood, more curiosity. The only person really shocked by it (so far) seems to be the father! Was that typical of the era? Or is the emotion deliberately understated to focus on the facts of the case?

I think the crime provoked both horror and curiosity, much as it did in me. As a chronicler of this story, I don’t think I’m very different from the fascinated, appalled neighbours and other locals who gathered outside the house in which the boys were found with their mother’s body, exchanging facts and rumours, speculating about what had happened and what it meant.

@BearAusten

Do you think that Robert and Nattie would have had better or worse lives if the murder had not been committed? Would Nattie still have been a ship's stoker and died from lung cancer? Would Robert have emigrated and had such an important role in Harry Mulville's life?

Nattie was spared any punishment for the part he played in the crime, and he went on to have a very hard life as a stoker, shovelling coal into the furnaces of steamships. Though tougher than his father’s work as a steward on steamships, it was the kind of vocation that probably awaited him anyway. I imagine it did contribute to his lung disease.

Robert, ironically, gained opportunities after the murder that he never would have had otherwise. In the normal course of events, he could have expected to work at sea or in a shipyard in East London, but at Broadmoor he trained as a tailor, learned to play chess and musical instruments, to garden and to read history books. He inhabited an idyllic country setting instead of the dirty, noisy streets around the docks. Robert’s life was transformed by the crime he committed, and I believe that his rescue of Harry was rooted in what had happened in his past - the murder and the events that preceded the murder, and then his years in the asylum.

@TheNotoriousPMT

Like pp, I'm curious as to what Kate Summerscale thinks was actually happening in the house in the run-up to and aftermath of the killing? And - to what extent was Robert influenced by his experiences in Broadmoor?

Thank you - it's a book I will be recommending to many.

In the days after the murder, I think that Robert and Nattie only half-believed what had happened. Nattie drew back when Robert showed him the body, saying “You ain’t done it”, and the brothers barely referred to the crime or their mother over the next ten days. It was only when the body was discovered, and Robert confessed and Nattie bolted, that the murder became truly real to them. I think Robert was changed by the care and calm he found at Broadmoor. The asylum provided a new family for him, extending his education and giving him an emotional steadiness he had not found in his own home. We can never know exactly what went on in his house before the killing, though I hope a reader will feel (as I do) that the events at the end of Robert’s life shed some light on his motive for the murder.