I'd be inclined to write that as follows:

sub new {
    return (bless {}, shift)->init(@_);
}

sub init {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->SUPER::init(@_);

    1 # put stuff to initialize here
        or die "Failed to init $self: blah blah\n";

    return $self;
}
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Makeshifts last the longest.