As If

First edition. 8vo., 245 pp. Red cloth boards lettered in black to spine; grey endpapers.

Signed by Author to title-page. Scarce, so.

An account of the trial of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both ten years old at the time, for the murder of two year old Liverpudlian toddler James Bulger. Begun as a piece for The New Yorker – published as ''Children of Circumstance,'' in the magazine's Feb. 14, 1994, issue – it grew into this book-length study of the case, of Morrison's reactions to it, of parenthood and childhood, of innocence and guilt and the nature of good and evil.

His memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father? won the Waterstone's/ Esquire Award for non-fiction and the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography in 1993. ''A thought-provoking, often disturbing book.'' –Library Journal