About A Son: A Murder and A Father's Search for Truth

About A Son is a book that explores the emotional depth of grief, injustice, and the human heart. It is based on a diary kept by Morgan Hehir's father, Colin Hehir, after his son's murder in 2015. The book is a unique and moving exploration of love and loss, and a groundbreaking work of creative non-fiction.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 28 April 2022
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

As heard on the HOW TO FAIL podcast with Elizabeth Day:


I was utterly floored by the emotional depth of About A Son - a book that reaches so deeply into the human experience that to read it is to be forever changed. It is an unflinching examination of grief, a painstaking deconstruction of injustice, and a dispatch from the frontiers of the human heart.


Elizabeth Day:


On the evening of Halloween in 2015, Morgan Hehir was walking with friends close to Nuneaton town centre when they were viciously attacked by a group of strangers. Morgan was stabbed, and died hours later in hospital. He was twenty years old and loved making music with his band, going to the football with his mates, having a laugh; a talented graffiti artist who dreamed of moving away and building a life for himself by the sea.


From the moment he heard the news, Morgan's father, Colin Hehir, began to keep an extraordinary diary. It became a record not only of the immediate aftermath of his son's murder, but also a chronicle of his family's evolving grief, the trial of Morgan's killers, and his personal fight to unravel the lies, mistakes, and cover-ups that led to a young man with a history of violence being free to take Morgan's life that night.


Inspired by this diary, About a Son is a unique and deeply moving exploration of love and loss and a groundbreaking work of creative non-fiction. Part true crime, part memoir, it tells the story of a shocking murder, the emotional repercussions, and the failures that enabled it to take place. It shows how grief affects and changes us, and asks what justice means if the truth is not heard. It asks what can be learned, and where we go from here.

Weight: 380g
Dimension: 143 x 221 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474620567