Black Swan Green

A page turner. I love the innocence of the story and the creative ability of the writer where he surprises you with a small detail or takes you to the scene where you can feel the air and hear the conversations. I will read it again in a few years.

This is one of my all time favorites. It's very evocative of time and place and extremely true to adolescent awkwardness and angst. Even though I was not a teenage boy, didn't grow up in England, and am too young to reliably remember 1982, I completely identified with Jason.

Mitchell's earlier novels, I'm told, are considered complex and difficult. This one is neither. Beautifully written, it's a pleasure to read just for the writing, but also an absorbing story of a boy's 13th year in a small British town. It's very funny at times, sad at others, and full of insight into character, the nature of morality, and life in 1980's Britain. Highly recommended.

The angst of a 13 year old stammerer who is predictably a social outcast (through no fault of his own, it’s just the way his world is) is told in a series of vignettes as his family disintegrates. Characters not likable, no depth, no plot line, not even a coming of age story. Yuck.

My daughter has to read this book for school - I have been reading it along with her - we are both bored to death - it is a clunky, laborious read. If we could only get past page 60 maybe it will get better!

I read Black Swan Green after an old English professor recommended it to me. He said the story of Jason, the protagonist, and his maneuvering though his young life, resonated with him deeply. So, because I like that teacher, I decided to give it a go.

Let me say that I really liked parts of Black Swan Green. I liked the playful language that Jason invents, and the fact that he was embarrassed to say the word "melancholy" in front of his friends. I also liked various descriptions in the novel. For example, at one point, Jason is hiding up high in a tree, spying, and underneath two lovers (after coitus) fall asleep; and Jason describes watching a Red Admiral butterfly land on those sleepy lovers backs, to drink out of pools of sweat collected in their curves. Lovely stuff in my opinion. I also felt genuine pangs several times when reading about Jason's parents' rocky marriage, and how much Jason really wanted to pounce on a particularly "ace" (Jason's words) girl. Lots of merits for the book-- especially in the later chapters.

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't recommend this novel to a lot of people. It does have its charm, true, but its also tedious at times. More than once I put down the book and decided to come back later, just because I couldn't focus, because it wasn't catching my attention; there were long passages about Wars and the philosophy of truth and beauty, which didn't resonate. I also didn't like how fragmented the book was at times. What I mean by that is, the book is thirteen chapters, all about Jason, but in many ways those chapters don't gel, they don't interlock and build off of each other very well. It almost seemed at times that the book was thirteen short stories about Jason, kind of connected, put into novel format. Moreover, it was a fragmented read because commonly, after a major incident would occur, the chapter would end, and then there would be no real mention of how Jason felt or handled the situation afterward (Moran in the Spooks chapter). I felt little resolution of incidents, apparently profound ones, at times.

On the all, I'm glad I read the novel. But had my professor not recommended it, I'm not sure I'd have finished. Lots of people apparently appreciate it, and that's great; I hope it's not just because some of the characters in Black Swan Green also appear in Cloud Atlas. Nevertheless, it's poignant writing at times. Lastly, had the novel had more unity, and more clarity, I think I would have liked it a bit more.

Black Swan Green tells the story of a year in the life of Jason Taylor, a 13 year-old schoolboy living in a small english town. Over the course of the novel, Jason goes through many of the trials and tribulations of boyhood, along with a diverse cast of family and friends.

Easily the best part of the novel is the character development. Jason himself is extremely well-drawn for such a young character, combining his love of poetry, urge to be accepted by his peers, his crush, his speech impediment, and his love the usual schoolboy adventures. But the rest of the cast follows suit, with Jason's parents, his sister Julia, his relatives, his school teachers, friends, and enemies all being extraordinarily well written.

But you also have to mention the meticulous work that went into the plotting of this novel. Jason experiences a lot in this 300-page book, and so, so much of it is relatable, guarenteed to trigger waves of nostalgia.

And of course, David Mitchell didn't get a reputation as one of the best prose writers for nothing. The writing of this novel truly draws you in and forces you to keep going.

All in all, this is one of the best coming-of-age stories I've read in quite awhile, and I could recommend it to anyone.

This book was lent to me by a friend who described it as "Like Ender's Game" and then said something about his times in boarding school and how it was "exactly like that", and as I sit here typing up this review I'm kind of left wondering if he lent me the wrong book. This book was nothing like Ender's Game, and there are no boarding schools involved. Which isn't a bad thing per se, I'm just still left reeling because this book was nothing like I was led to expect, so this review might be a little odd because of that.

What this book IS about is a kid named Jason, who lives in rural England. It follows a year in his life as he deals with typical young-teenaged-boy things, like bullies at school, his parents' constant fighting, and growing up. It's a coming-of-age tale that offers a very believable protagonist and relatable experiences.

The style of the book was different though, and while I enjoyed it for the most part it's definitely not for everyone. The book is broken up into chapters of sorts, but each new chapter jumps ahead a sometimes-undetermined amount of time, so there are some instances where a chapter ends with some intense drama and then opens up with no resolution to that drama, and instead he's eating breakfast a few months later and worrying about something completely different than he was on the prior page. It can be jarring and frustrating as a reader.

But I enjoy Mitchell's writing (I was also a fan of The Bone Clocks) and liked that Jason was such a normal boy, complete with a stutter he struggles with and a lot of self-doubt. I'd recommend this to people who enjoy coming-of-age tales and don't mind that in the end, there isn't much of a plot.

As an American reader about eight years older than Mitchell and his somewhat alter-ego, stammering, nearly-thirteen Jason Taylor in "muddy Worcestershire" in 1982, I found this story compelling, and the musical and cultural, slangy references entertaining if of course sometimes baffling. Combining familiarity with distance, dealing with what's now thirty years ago, makes for an engaging narrative, full of the torments which adolescence causes, and vividly related in ways that will revive long-buried memories of similar youthful distress for many.

That's the secret of "Black Swan Green." It revives in great, loving, anguished detail what it's like to be a picked-on boy in school, in his village, and by his family, at least in his eyes. We never take our eyes off of Jason, and his presence wins us over, for all his gawkiness. Mitchell's skill shows as he keeps us always in the vivid present tense of Jason, and we adjust to his pace as he tries to better himself by winning respect from his tormenters, revenge on a few in particular, and to act ethically in a convincing scene when nobody else is looking to see how he will resolve his temptation. That this is followed soon by Jason's own act of vengeance makes the juxtaposition all the more convincing.

Similarly, scenes which might have come off as mawkish or contrived don't feel other than out of the ordinary routine for our narrator. These can be dramatic, most of all as we learn about the Falklands War via broadcasts, rumor, and then fact as the community's jingoistic air fades to a more measured reaction to that campaign once its costs are felt in his village. The Cold War, we are reminded, is still alive, and Reagan and Thatcher square off against foes nearer to Southern Britain and so all the more frightening to an imaginative, sensitive boy. But Mitchell can also enrich the small scale shifts in daily life for Jason.

A conversation about old watches with an American saleswoman, another with an Irish emigrant who helps him out one day in town, and a third with Gypsies all unfold to offer information and context without seeming as if Mitchell's dumping data in or simply trying to shake us out of any plot doldrums. He also hints, in retrospect, at a key development off-stage which will effect the narrator at the novel's conclusion. Mitchell plays fair, surprising us while not tricking us.

It's not all whining. A clever vignette offers an eccentric art teacher, Mr. Dinwoodie, whom Jason stumbles upon one day after class. The teacher's reading George Bataille's "Story of the Eye." Deadpan in the audio reading I heard, he assures the boy that as is clear from its title, it's a book about the history of opticians. Mitchell conveys this deadpan too, from the perspective of Jason at 13.

Praise for Kirby Heyborne's audiobook. At first, hearing 11 discs as opposed to reading "Cloud Atlas" and "Ghostwritten" (both reviewed earlier in 2013), the domestic and small-town drama felt overwrought, too peckish, too preoccupied with slang, trivia, and petty disputes. It may in retrospect feel too digressive, but others may counter that this length allows much more character insight than a tidier, quicker narrative would afford. Gradually, as Heyborne portrays hesitant, confused, eager-to-please Jason, we warm to his predicament. His inner conflict with his own naysayers, nicknamed by him "maggot" if echoing his schoolyard bullies, "hangman" if mocking his stammering, and "unborn twin" if indulging in sarcasm or irony, widen the consciousness of Jason, beneath the written register.

Finally, although this is only the third Mitchell novel I've finished, it's fun to see his interconnections again. Neil Brose, here a "golden boy" of the school, will get an early comeuppance akin to that in "Ghostwritten" about fifteen years later when he's a financial trader in Hong Kong. Madame Crommelynck, from Belgium, will invite Jason to her estate, and we hear a hint of a composer's tale which will become Robert Frobisher's own in "Cloud Atlas" fifty years earlier. At his first dance, Jason will at last be happy while hearing John Lennon's "Number 9 Dream," the title of what will be, for me, the next reviewed of Mitchell's finely observed, and for this one, deceptively low-key and "ordinary," novels I've read.

This was an entertaining book, but with the same strengths and weaknesses as a well scripted and acted made for TV movie.

Your heart goes out to 13 year old Jason Taylor, central figure and narrator of this saga as he suffers the throes of sexual adolescence, stuttering, and the resulting bullying he suffers from his school mates, and the disintegration of his parents' marriage, all during one year in the English Midlands.

The action is vividly rendered and the nasty bullying is sometimes hard to even read. However, there is little suspense as plotting is not Mitchell's strong point. Even the barely conscious reader can predict how each facet of the story is going to end. It is all too pat.

One annoying characteristic is the author's compulsion to throw everything in, all the time. He doesn't name one classmate but thirty. The kids don't listen to one song but ten. There is encyclopedic (and unnecessary) description of everything. He is good at it, but is it good for the story and the reader? I think not.

This is a diverting entertainment, but not nearly as heartfelt as Catcher in the Rye, with which it is often compared. For all his faults, there is more real pathos in Salinger than here. Nevertheless, it is a superior example of the genre. But you have read it many times before.

I love reading. If I could quit my job and read all day I would. One problem I have is that there are just too many books in the world, and so many are in English, which is the only language I can read. I can read a couple of books a week in a good week. Maybe 120 in a year. So it is very rare that I will read a book twice. In fact, Black Swan Green is one of the handful of books that I have ever read twice. I read it first the year it came out, and again this past week.

What is so great about this book? I think that early adolescence in the 1980's has never been and will never be captured as well as it is in this book. Even though it is set in England, it should be read by anyone who was in their early teens in the 1980's. If you don't find yourself as a teen in this book, then you probably didn't exist. Mitchell reminds you of the joy and pain of coming of age like noone else I have ever read. And Black Swan Green is not even considered his best book! Please, if you grew up in the 1980's, buy this book, read it, love it, and come back to it again.

Perhaps not, or perhaps it just depends on the age in question. Yet adolescence is the big question. The best stories are the ones that drag you out of whatever nest you've had and catapult you into adulthood's treacherous and unmapped course. Mitchell's story of a stammering, stuttering teen beset by bullies, flings the reader through launch, zenith, and landing during the hero's thirteenth year. The Falkland War is on, Thatcher and Reagan reign, yet the story never leaves the small village of Black Swan abutting the Malvern Hills. The local dialogue is rhythmic and MItchell activates leaves, trees, watches, and glassy ponds. As young Jason Taylor passes from January to January, his family, friends, and enemies accompany him through forests, encountering mysterious old hags and dames, gypsies, and young lovers. The torture of bullying at school, the sympathy of teachers, and scars wrought by clueless ignorance are palpable. Parents fumble and, mostly, recover. It's all here, compact and compelling.

Jason Taylor has secrets, and if they get out, he's ruined. His stutter and his amateur poetry will make him a target for bullies for years to come, and no girl will have anything to do with him - including the savage and beautiful Dawn Madden. He is dreadfully aware of his less-than-average place in the social pecking order, and wants nothing more than to be accepted by his peers. He doesn't want to live in fear either.

Jason's story only gets more complicated as family difficulties, love, bullies, friendship and a distant war that seems all too near take their toll in their own unique ways. Jason must navigate this labyrinth at a time when he is dreadfully ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of a life he is only beginning to understand.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell began as a pretty average coming-of-age story about a thirteen-year-old boy named Jason who is struggling with adolescence, and the harsh realities of the adult lives that bleed into his own. It engaged me enough to keep me reading, but lacked the literary wizardly of Cloud Atlas.

However, what felt like a lot of set-up eventually fell into place at about the mid-point, and after that I was fully vested in the characters and couldn't put the book down.

The run-of-the-mill tale blossomed into a poignant, original, and heartfelt experience about what it means to be confronted by the confusion and uncertainty of a future that seems infinite and overwhelming.

Black Swan Green has all the marks of a good book because it took me through an emotional gamut, from humor, to sadness, to contemplation, and back again. Mitchell's simple observations about life, society, and human nature follow a rich literary tradition, and like Steinbeck, he excels at penning emotionally resonant descriptions and insights that are, at times, poetic.

Mitchell is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, and I expect I will have read his entire repertoire soon enough.

-Vlad Vaslyn
Author of Brachman's Underworld,Yorick and The Button (Fall 2013).

Adolescence. If there's something else like that time in your life, I've never heard of it. When is there another period that alternates between being excruciatingly horrible and exhilaratingly brilliant? Awkwardness, attraction, body changes. Crushes, bullies, first kisses. Faces that haven't caught up to noses yet. Boys are tiny, girls terrifying and towering. And neither sex understands the other. A kid's status can change overnight from cool (superhero underwear!) to outcast (superhero underwear!) without any warning. Main theme from this age: pay attention or die.

Maybe I haven't read that many coming-of-age novels (or Bildungsroman, as I have learned today), but when I think of them, I always assumed that these types of books were either moody in an "adults don't understand me or my generation at all so I am going to sulk and smoke filterless cigarettes" kind-of-a-way or something abhorrent happens that knocks the main character for a loop or otherwise takes them on a journey that most people never have to experience. I found out that I am wrong, that it really can be any kind of book where the kid just grows up. So, yes, this book is a coming-of-age novel; but it is so much more because it also flies below the radar. The tales, the pacing and the discoveries aren't really profound. They just are the truth that we all experience in one way or another.

Jason Taylor is a new teen in Margaret Thatcher's Faulkland Islands-era England. He lives in Black Swan Green, a village in Worcestershire, which is a place he considers to be the middle of nowhere. Plus, there are no swans. He finds himself to be uninteresting, uncool and desperately trying to stay below the radar of his fellow classmates that would crucify him if they knew he stuttered. There's a definite strata of kids, and certain things can get you lowered a peg or two. Like stuttering. Or having people know that you write poetry that's published in the parish newsletter.

This is a story of thirteen. The struggles to be heard, wanting someone to like like you, trying to convince your parents that you aren't a little kid anymore. Being respected (or, more accurately, not tortured) by your peers. Hoping that teachers would stop being tired sadists. Trying to make it through the day without embarrassing yourself, or worse, having everyone else see you embarrass yourself.

There is one chapter for each year of Jason's life with a different tale each month: a sister leaves for college, an old lady giving a lesson in writing. Fights, loss of life, a first crush. Being comfortable in your own skin. Standing up for yourself, no matter what. Ordinary stories, really, but out of their "ordinariness" we find resonance and depth. And ourselves.

The first thing I wondered when I starting to write my review was the age of David Mitchell. Was this book autobiographical? Did he stutter like the main character, Jason Taylor? After a quick search on Google, I discovered that this tale is, indeed, semi-autobiographical. The author does stutter and he grew up in the area where the story takes place. Mr. Mitchell was born in 1969, so he was thirteen, the same age as the protagonist, in 1982, the year the book takes place.

The book's honesty is palpable. Wanting to hide something so you're not different. Trying to keep from being lumped in with that group of kids that is the most scorned. Attempting to show some measure of cool, without being called out on it. In other words, middle school. And even though quite a bit of the slang was new to me, it flavored this book and made it a truthful slice of life.

4 of 5 Stars (Based on Ink and Page's Rating System)

Genres: Young Adult Fiction Contemporary
Ages: 14 and up
You might want to know: Occasional profanity, mild discussions of sex, drinking and drugs

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell was published April 11, 2006 by Random House.

Author David Mitchell is one of the best of the best! This is the fourth of his books I have read, and all have been excellent, and all have been totally different, not only in plot and characters but also in style. That is quite an accomplishment, as so many writers tend to write the same book over and over, just changing the plot. The one constant in a Mitchell book is his ability to write in a distinct voice for each separate character--his ear is extraordinary.

Black Swan Green is a first-person narrative by a 13-year-old boy and tells the story of one year in his life. The voice here is so natural, with thoughts and words so typical of a young person of this age, that it reads like a true journal; it is totally believable.

Jason Taylor lives in a small village in England; the year is 1982; his main concern in life is not falling to the outcast-level at his school because of his stammer. He writes poetry but hides it from everyone because it would be considered "gay," and to be considered "gay" also means an instant drop to the bottom of the social ladder. During this coming-of-age year, Justin experiences first kisses, first cigarettes, the first instance of the death of someone he knows, a first realization that other people have lives which are different from the one he knows.

Nothing very shocking or ultra-dramatic happens here. Rather, it is the very ordinary catalog of events which makes the novel seem so true. Jason's year unfolds typically; even the slow dissolve of the marriage of his parents is an all-too-common occurrence. But during the course of the year Jason matures and learns how to confront many of his fears.

Mitchell has said that this novel is semi-autobiographical (he is himself a stammerer), and perhaps that is one reason for the "trueness" of this narrative; only a very few writers have done as well in the coming-of-age genre.

I enjoyed this one, by the author Cloud Atlas (review coming soon.) "Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys' games on a frozen lake; of "nightcreeping" through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason's search to replace his dead grandfather's irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher's recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons."

I enjoyed the depiction of small town life in this one. Black Swan Green is kind of a book of short stories about Jason Taylor's adventures, though not exactly. You do have to know about the Hangman, which is what Jason calls his stammer. All of the stories were really interesting. Despite its short length, this one is a pretty slow read, because the font was really annoying, and also, there's a lot of British 1980s slang (I'm sure it's changed since then.) All of the characters living in this small town are well portrayed; I think Mitchell did a great job of showing the various types and social hierarchies among the schoolboys too. Also, the slow unraveling of Jason's mother and father's marriage was really good too, shown in every chapter.

It was interesting, because the book is set during the Falkland War in Argentina, where the British were fighting for control of them. And somehow, they lost to Argentina. At the beginning of the book, everyone is so sure that of course the British will win. But then an inhabitant from the town is killed. It kind of reminded me of Gone With the Wind and the way that the losing side is so sure that they will be the victors. Anyway, I enjoyed this one a lot.

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I read this on a kindle and really had no idea how many pages long the book was until I finished and looked it up. Three hundred is not a lot and I am a fast reader, but this seemed much longer. Maybe because, although I enjoyed the book and I enjoy Mitchell's writing style, I can only take so much male adolescent angst. Every time I read a coming-of-age book, I am reminded that it's all pretty much a first-world problem. Adolescents in other cultures and other eras are expected to be in hard training for adulthood, not wallowing in some five-year no-man's land between childhood and adulthood. The ending, though, was very touching.

I have now read three of Mitchell's books (This book, "Cloud Atlas", and "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet") and in each I asked myself whether I should lay it down and move on to something else somewhere in the first half because he has a tendency to wind up VERY slowly. His beginnings can be interminable. Yet, I love his writing and I think that he is an incredibly talented writer. It only takes reading a few of the free kindle offerings to realize how precious and rare that talent is. But, he's exhausting too, so I think I may need a little break.

I have to mention that I love the fact that characters migrate from one book to another in the most unexpected ways, but I also have to take issue with the "moon-gray" cat. There is apparently no other color cat in Mr. Mitchell's world and I believe that the first mention of a feline of this description in the next book of his that I read WILL cause me to put it down and not pick it up again. :)

I just finished reading this truly wonderful novel, having borrowed it from my local library. Having read this, after reading "Cloud Atlas" last year, I am now a confirmed fan of David Mitchell's writing. I also enjoyed his translation of "The Reason I Jump" and have ordered a copy of "Ghostwritten" to continue exploring his talent. "Black Swan Green" is a very special book, a first-person narrative covering one year in the life of a 13-year-old, Jason Taylor, a stammerer, a secret poet, a foil for clod-headed bullies--a boy with a rich internal dialog, populated with multiple invented personae: "Hangman", "Maggot", the Unborn twin, the drowned boy. Month to month we follow him, the backdrop is 1982, the music is post-punk new wave, Margaret Thatcher wages war with the Falklands and the British economy, Jason's parents' marriage is coming apart, and Jason's is distracted by his day-to-day coping with bullies who find him an easy target. Mitchell provides a nice surprise by incorporating a key character from "Cloud Atlas" whose interest in Jason's poetry bolsters his confidence in himself. If some things resolve a bit too neatly, we can only be glad because that is what we wish for Jason. A very satisfying read.

I'm not usually much for coming-of-age novels; seems they all beat childhood to death with too much hackneyed hyperbole employed to describe what we already know in much less breathless terms. Mitchell, however, makes this kid, Jason, worth listening to. True, many of his experiences are common to most childhoods but there's just enough intellectual distance and self-awareness to make the story of Jason, his older sister and their parents a good read. The author also sprinkles childish contractions and English slang together in a quite interesting mix. And as a starting point for the evolution of Mitchell himself the book is worth a read. It's quite good, thankfully not too long, and in the end a satisfying work to enjoy.

David Mitchell has built a reputation on large, magical worlds full of action and intrigue, a style he relaxes for his take on a Bildungsroman, to fantastic, and somewhat heartbreaking effect. BlackSwanGreen presents a subtle, but memorable, young man trying to bridge the gap between boyhood and being an adult, all while trying to hide his stutter from the other kids at school. Where many authors fill coming-of-age stories with too much angst and overblown scenarios, David Mitchell remembers that its sometimes the smallest things that make growing up the most painful, like suddenly realizing the fort in your backyard is actually kind of small and depressing. In true Mitchell style, BlackSwanGreen is full of a rich cast of characters that breathe life into this novel and who may just appear elsewhere in the Mitchell-verse, including a favorite of mine (but I won't say whom) from Cloud Atlas, appearing as a voice of wisdom for our young protagonist.

A true gem.

This novel is the antidote to Philip Hensher's "Northern Clemency". David Mitchell in telling the story of Jason Taylor's mostly terrifying coming of age in Middle England and in the era of Margaret Thatcher has created a superb piece of work. It was a satisfying read and one which left more than a touch of reflection. The "Lord of the Flies" of adolescence seems not to have improved in time, bullies and the need to find an identity to belong, not to stand out are well covered in this novel. And it is more akin to "Lord of the Flies" than Adrian Mole. Although the difference with "Lord of the Flies" is that "Black Swan Green" is at times deeply funny and yes some of it is geeky. The dysfunction of the Taylor middle class nuclear family (and the extended mob who descend for family events-the toxic oh so cool Hugo and braying Brian his dad are great walk on characters. The expectations and entitlements are explored minutely. But with sensitivity and compassion, the novelist lets the reader judge. It was a very satisfying read.

Black Swan Green is the 4th novel by David Mitchell. It describes a year in the life of Jason Taylor, an intense, thoughtful but stammering thirteen-year-old budding poet living in darkest Worcestershire. Set in 1982, this is a very realistic rendition of the anxieties and challenges faced by teenagers in the early eighties. Each chapter details the events of one or more days in the months of that year. Through the beautiful prose of his narration, we join Jason in boyish adventures and coming-of-age rituals (first cigarette, initiation rites, first kiss), and we learn of his ambitions (poetry, forestry) and his anxieties (stammering, the Falklands war, his parents' relationship, girls). In that time of life when image is all important and peer pressure is strong, Jason tries to navigate a path that does not betray his values and ambitions but doesn't damage his credibility of make him look "too gay". Jason's relationship with his family and his true friends is heartwarming and the poet hidden inside the young man is apparent in his thoughts and descriptions. Ultimately, he finds the courage he needs to face his demons. His naiveté, observations and occasional ignorance make for many laugh-out-loud moments, but the scariest thing about this novel was that I knew all the songs and artists mentioned from first appearance. This coming-of-age novel is at least as good as Jasper Jones. A dazzling read.

Black Swan Green - David Mitchel
Audio version performed by Kirby Heybourne
4 stars

Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor remembers Black Swan Green. He remembers village life, Upton-on-Seven Comprehensive School, the frozen pond, the Goose Fair and the Falklands War. Jason Taylor remembers 1982. This is a great coming of age story told in the voice of a perceptive, intelligent boy who suffers the growing pangs of being different from the pack.

Portions of this book made me uncomfortable. Jason is painfully self-conscious of his stammer. His parents argue. He is severely bullied. I felt his pain so acutely that I wanted to put the book down. But I couldn't walk away. I liked Jason Taylor too much. He is typical in his imaginative, exaggerated fantasies, but atypical in his acute observations and pithy commentary. Sticking with the story paid off. Jason perseveres through the tough times and triumphs through at least one year of adolescence.

Bullying is a hot topic in today's schools. Jason Taylor and Black Swan Green could make a great contribution to any discussion of this problem. When Jason Taylor has finally reached his limit and takes decisive action, there are immediate consequences for his class. From my point of view, Mr. Kempsey exemplifies how an educator should not respond to bullying. On the other hand, Miss Lippits' lesson on secrets and reputation is `spot on'. ("Miss Lippets loves her job on good days.")

A dynamic writer, Mitchell's previous novels included the psycho-thriller 'Number 9 Dream' (elliptically mentioned in this novel) and the postmodern Russian doll narrative 'Cloud Atlas'. While 'Black Swan Green' seems less adventurous in terms of vision and structure, this novel is nonetheless an absorbing read.

Mitchell's boyhood tale traces 13 months of a 13 year-old's life in an English village with a misnomer of a name - there are no swans in Black Swan Green, black or otherwise.

The (one suspects as autobiographical) novel examines Jason Taylor's love-hate relationship with his older sister Julia who refers to him as "Thing", his seemingly autocratic dad who imposes a stricter-than-strict rule about entering his study and answering his phone, his unreasonable mother who squanders his dad's money for frivolous keeping-up-with-the-Joneses projects. But what separates Mitchell's narrative from other similar coming-of-age stories is the way these first impressions of the family change as the author (and protagonist) delves deeper into the layers of family life, which sets as a backdrop to his larger world of school and its politics.

The level of bullying at school can be alarming and through Jason, who's always concerned about looking gay,i.e. showing sensitivity, from writing poetry to being seen in public with his parents, Mitchell reminds us of the oppressive social politics of adolescent life, while keeping a keen sense of bittersweet humour.

One particular episode that lingered in my mind way after the novel closed was how Mitchell turned a raucous and side-splittingly funny episode involving projectile vomitting at a teacup ride at the fair into something tragic. The shock of this sudden change in the scene is pretty dramatic, to say the least.

The self-contained chapters unsettled me because there were no clear closures to these individual episodes. However, they lent a level of authenticity as they resembled the disjointedness of an adolescent's diary. Some conclusions are hinted at and embedded in later chapters to satisfy finicky readers like me.

I had scarcely read a half dozen pages of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green when I started hearing echoes, teen echoes from my own experience years ago reading Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Although the narrator of Mitchell's novel, Jason Taylor, is a young Brit just entering his teen years in the 1980's, excepting the teen patois of small town Worcestershire, he might have been an English Holden Caulfield. Young Taylor takes us through one year of his life, the thirteenth, his first teenage year, a stormy year filled with bizarre experiences and characters. There's the mysterious proprietor of The House in the Woods who heals Jason's ankle with some mysterious poultice after he has injured it iceskating on a nearby pond, the whole time warning the teen not to wake her brother, whom we discover later, had been killed years ago in WWII. Jason's clandestine efforts at poetry lead him to meet the eccentric Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck who in just a few intense hours gives the young poet a seminar one would be lucky to take as a post-graduate candidate for a Doctorate in English. Her character--and critical views on poetry--disappointingly so, are shortlived in the novel when Madame Eva and her "butler" (husband, Jason later learns) are deported for political reasons. And then there's the Gypsy camp which has its own eccentric characters and ways.

Two persistent threads of story follow Jason through the months of his thirteenth year. The first is his trying to keep secret the accidental breaking of his grandfather's Omega Seamaster De Ville wrist watch during his skating mishap. Thus begins his quest to replace the watch before his parents discover it's been broken. A second is Jason's speech impediment: he is a stammerer. He personifies his speaking nemesis as "Hangman" after he discovers during a classroom session of the game his mouth won't spit out the "N" in "nightingale." Not even Jason's sessions with a speech therapist can keep "Hangman" from tying his tongue, threatening to embarrass him before his schoolmates, and the teen takes elaborate measures to keep his stammer a secret. (He finds himself thinking ahead to each next sentence, and when his math teacher gives him a problem the answer to which is "Ninety-Nine," even though he knows the answer, he blurts out "101" to counter Hangman's efforts to trip him up.)

It is this same shortcoming that gives a band of fiendish schoolmate bullies their opening in the book's most chilling chapter ("Maggot"), in which Mitchell recounts the emotional thrashing young Jason takes at the hands of these youthful blackguards. These days when schoolyard bullying is much in the news, the reader shudders at the constant barrage of taunts and challenges young Jason must endure, and feels the helplessness (hardly vicarious for any reader, though hopefully to a lesser degree) a victim of bullying experiences. One can't help but wonder to what diabolical levels the teen tyrant Ross Wilcox and his cronies could have carried their bullying had they access in those days to the internet and Facebook!

Just when you think that Jason's passive resistance, resilience--and the fact he has in Dean Moran one staunch friend and girlfriend Holly Deblin (ah, that first kiss)--and intelligence prevail, his stormy year concludes with two more slings of misfortune: his father's losing his job (as timely these days as bullying) and finally his parents' divorce. The family splits apart and Jason must move to Cheltenham, his fourteenth year spent at a strange school, new chaps, new challenges, and given the tumult of his thirteenth year, we are anxious for him.

Though Brit teen jargon:"snogging" (necking, petting?), "cacks" (pants?) is a bit of a challenge at first, I soon found myself swept up by Jason Taylor and his story and side with him as he weathers the pitfalls of teen-dom, just as those many years ago I sided with that other troubled teen, young Holden Caulfield. David Mitchell's Black Swan Green is a masterful story masterfully told. I heartily recommend it.

Not as powerful as Mitchell's superb Cloud Atlas, but an authentic portrayal of adolescence, set in early 1980s England. The book's protagonist, Jason Taylor, is a quiet, uncertain boy who struggles with a stutter. Through his much more even inner voice, Mitchell recreates with unflinching honesty all the joys and terrors of adolescence. Jason maintains a precarious hold near the bottom of the school social ladder, endures relentless torment from bullies, and watches his parents' marriage unravel month by month. The bullies are especially effective characters, as Mitchell makes sure they're just as bad as adult readers have tried to forget they were, and just as overpowering in their cruelty.

But, it's not all trial: there's friendship, first love, and the eventual turning point of hard-won confidence and social acceptance. Nor does Mitchell skimp on all the ordinary details of being 13 -- classes, walks in the woods, encounters with neighbors, crushes on girls, conversations at the family dinner, accidentally seeing one's father drunk and naked -- it's really these moments, experienced intimately through an authentic 13 year old point of view, that drive the book.

Though not to the same degree as Cloud Atlas, there are a few touches of the fanciful. In the course of the novel, Jason meets several oddball characters who seem at least as much like literary figures as real people. Their presence, though not crucial to the story, challenges, in a winking way, both Jason's and the reader's politely restrained attitudes about life. One character, in fact, is an aged version of someone who appears in Cloud Atlas.

The novel has a very episodic structure, with the larger plot arc unfolding at a leisurely pace, and a narrative that consists, for the first three quarters of so, of small daily events that feed Jason's inner life, rather than drastically altering the course of his outer one. But this inner life and its reflections are really the point of the book, and patient readers will find much to like (especially the 1980s British slang) in Mitchell's eyes-open portrait of an age, time, and place. As with Cloud Atlas, Mitchell shows a talent for taking simple, familiar scenes and giving them an elusive air of meaning above the scene's own significance.

Side note: Some readers have complained that Jason sounds a little too eloquent to be a 13 year old. Yeah, I agree that no 13 year old talks like him, but I don't think it was so much Mitchell's intent to capture what a 13 year old *says* as it was to capture how one *thinks*. Sometimes a writer has to take a few creative liberties to get inside someone's head. Our own voices are always more "adult" in there, anyway.

Some look back on their early adolescence with nostalgia, while others would rather forget the awkward stops and starts along the bumpy road where we begin as children and end as adults. Jason Taylor, narrator of David Mitchell's newest novel, reveals a life that is the source of both; he is a thirteen-year-old would-be poet navigating through one tragi-comic year in his young life. Each of the thirteen chapters in the novel chronicles a different month, and each features those moments in childhood that we believe at the time will mark (or scar) us forever. In Jason, Mitchell has conjured one of the most memorable and real narrators in literature; he reflects on girls, his parents' distintigrating marriage, the cruel initiations of adolescence, or the Falkland wars with equal pathos.

Black Swan Green takes place in a small English countryside town in 1982, and the book is flavored with Thatcher politics, British vernacular , and early 80's pop music. Unlike Mitchell's earlier novels, Black Swan Green is in many ways a novel about the pains and pleasures of the ordinary, and Jason scrutinizes the everyday with as much perception as major life events. Thirteen is an age where an embarrassment at school or a fight with one's parents takes on epic proportions, and yet time passes in such a way that last month's tragedies seem to fade into the distant past. Mitchell conjures this sense with such ease that Jason is a completely believable character, even as his thoughts reveal a remarkable sophistication.

In Cloud Atlas, Mitchell showed himself to be a master of the narrative voice, and in Black Swan Green he exceeds all expectations. Instead of writing what could have been an angst-ridden, self-fixated modern Holden Caulfield, Mitchell brings Jason out of himself with a well-rendered cast of supporting characters: his distant, workaholic father and his acidic mother, the merciless bullies at school, his fellow outcast friends, and various colorful townsfolk. Just as significant but more subtle are the internal characters that populate Jason's mind, including Unborn Twin (the voice of self-deprecation and fear) and his omnipresent arch-nemesis, the Hangman. Hangman is the embodiment of Jason's stammer, a speech impediment that often leaves "s" words frozen on his tongue.

I honestly cannot say enough positive things about this book; Mitchell's writing is gorgeous, Jason's insights at turns comic and heartbreaking. Black Swan Green is perhaps Mitchell's most autobiographic, and it certainly feels like the most grounded of his novels. Beware of the seeming simplicity - this book is neither ordinary nor typical. Rather than produce another quaint coming of age tale, Mitchell delivers a subtle and masterful rendering of an age that is nearly impossible to capture.

~ Jacquelyn Gill

This is a wonderful and well written book following the life of a 13 year old boy in 1983 living in a Worcestershire village called Black Swan Green, writing poetry under a pseudonym, fighting a stammer that threatens to make his life a misery, dealing with family tensions and learning a whole lot about himself and others on the way.

I loved the way that the book is written as though the 13 year old boy is writing it. Albeit a talented 13 year old boy, with some very creative use of metaphor - but even here, the writing is deliberately a little overdone to maintain that feeling of youth in the writing.

The author goes to great lengths to fasten the narrative to the year of 1983 - in fact here he does overdo it. Things a 13 year old at the time would take for granted are repeatedly spelled out, so that you feel the author is trying to remind us all the time of the year. But that is a minor criticism for a book that skillfully delves into the life of a 13 year old boy, and makes you remember what it was like - the good an the bad.

This book has hidden depths too. It explores some difficult themes, expertly dancing through them, masterfully pulling the threads together into a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Black Swan Green - David Mitchel
Audio version performed by Kirby Heybourne
4 stars

Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor remembers Black Swan Green. He remembers village life, Upton-on-Seven Comprehensive School, the frozen pond, the Goose Fair and the Falklands War. Jason Taylor remembers 1982. This is a great coming of age story told in the voice of a perceptive, intelligent boy who suffers the growing pangs of being different from the pack.

Portions of this book made me uncomfortable. Jason is painfully self-conscious of his stammer. His parents argue. He is severely bullied. I felt his pain so acutely that I wanted to put the book down. But I couldn't walk away. I liked Jason Taylor too much. He is typical in his imaginative, exaggerated fantasies, but atypical in his acute observations and pithy commentary. Sticking with the story paid off. Jason perseveres through the tough times and triumphs through at least one year of adolescence.

Bullying is a hot topic in today's schools. Jason Taylor and Black Swan Green could make a great contribution to any discussion of this problem. When Jason Taylor has finally reached his limit and takes decisive action, there are immediate consequences for his class. From my point of view, Mr. Kempsey exemplifies how an educator should not respond to bullying. On the other hand, Miss Lippits' lesson on secrets and reputation is `spot on'. ("Miss Lippets loves her job on good days.")

A dynamic writer, Mitchell's previous novels included the psycho-thriller 'Number 9 Dream' (elliptically mentioned in this novel) and the postmodern Russian doll narrative 'Cloud Atlas'. While 'Black Swan Green' seems less adventurous in terms of vision and structure, this novel is nonetheless an absorbing read.

Mitchell's boyhood tale traces 13 months of a 13 year-old's life in an English village with a misnomer of a name - there are no swans in Black Swan Green, black or otherwise.

The (one suspects as autobiographical) novel examines Jason Taylor's love-hate relationship with his older sister Julia who refers to him as "Thing", his seemingly autocratic dad who imposes a stricter-than-strict rule about entering his study and answering his phone, his unreasonable mother who squanders his dad's money for frivolous keeping-up-with-the-Joneses projects. But what separates Mitchell's narrative from other similar coming-of-age stories is the way these first impressions of the family change as the author (and protagonist) delves deeper into the layers of family life, which sets as a backdrop to his larger world of school and its politics.

The level of bullying at school can be alarming and through Jason, who's always concerned about looking gay,i.e. showing sensitivity, from writing poetry to being seen in public with his parents, Mitchell reminds us of the oppressive social politics of adolescent life, while keeping a keen sense of bittersweet humour.

One particular episode that lingered in my mind way after the novel closed was how Mitchell turned a raucous and side-splittingly funny episode involving projectile vomitting at a teacup ride at the fair into something tragic. The shock of this sudden change in the scene is pretty dramatic, to say the least.

The self-contained chapters unsettled me because there were no clear closures to these individual episodes. However, they lent a level of authenticity as they resembled the disjointedness of an adolescent's diary. Some conclusions are hinted at and embedded in later chapters to satisfy finicky readers like me.

I had scarcely read a half dozen pages of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green when I started hearing echoes, teen echoes from my own experience years ago reading Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Although the narrator of Mitchell's novel, Jason Taylor, is a young Brit just entering his teen years in the 1980's, excepting the teen patois of small town Worcestershire, he might have been an English Holden Caulfield. Young Taylor takes us through one year of his life, the thirteenth, his first teenage year, a stormy year filled with bizarre experiences and characters. There's the mysterious proprietor of The House in the Woods who heals Jason's ankle with some mysterious poultice after he has injured it iceskating on a nearby pond, the whole time warning the teen not to wake her brother, whom we discover later, had been killed years ago in WWII. Jason's clandestine efforts at poetry lead him to meet the eccentric Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck who in just a few intense hours gives the young poet a seminar one would be lucky to take as a post-graduate candidate for a Doctorate in English. Her character--and critical views on poetry--disappointingly so, are shortlived in the novel when Madame Eva and her "butler" (husband, Jason later learns) are deported for political reasons. And then there's the Gypsy camp which has its own eccentric characters and ways.

Two persistent threads of story follow Jason through the months of his thirteenth year. The first is his trying to keep secret the accidental breaking of his grandfather's Omega Seamaster De Ville wrist watch during his skating mishap. Thus begins his quest to replace the watch before his parents discover it's been broken. A second is Jason's speech impediment: he is a stammerer. He personifies his speaking nemesis as "Hangman" after he discovers during a classroom session of the game his mouth won't spit out the "N" in "nightingale." Not even Jason's sessions with a speech therapist can keep "Hangman" from tying his tongue, threatening to embarrass him before his schoolmates, and the teen takes elaborate measures to keep his stammer a secret. (He finds himself thinking ahead to each next sentence, and when his math teacher gives him a problem the answer to which is "Ninety-Nine," even though he knows the answer, he blurts out "101" to counter Hangman's efforts to trip him up.)

It is this same shortcoming that gives a band of fiendish schoolmate bullies their opening in the book's most chilling chapter ("Maggot"), in which Mitchell recounts the emotional thrashing young Jason takes at the hands of these youthful blackguards. These days when schoolyard bullying is much in the news, the reader shudders at the constant barrage of taunts and challenges young Jason must endure, and feels the helplessness (hardly vicarious for any reader, though hopefully to a lesser degree) a victim of bullying experiences. One can't help but wonder to what diabolical levels the teen tyrant Ross Wilcox and his cronies could have carried their bullying had they access in those days to the internet and Facebook!

Just when you think that Jason's passive resistance, resilience--and the fact he has in Dean Moran one staunch friend and girlfriend Holly Deblin (ah, that first kiss)--and intelligence prevail, his stormy year concludes with two more slings of misfortune: his father's losing his job (as timely these days as bullying) and finally his parents' divorce. The family splits apart and Jason must move to Cheltenham, his fourteenth year spent at a strange school, new chaps, new challenges, and given the tumult of his thirteenth year, we are anxious for him.

Though Brit teen jargon:"snogging" (necking, petting?), "cacks" (pants?) is a bit of a challenge at first, I soon found myself swept up by Jason Taylor and his story and side with him as he weathers the pitfalls of teen-dom, just as those many years ago I sided with that other troubled teen, young Holden Caulfield. David Mitchell's Black Swan Green is a masterful story masterfully told. I heartily recommend it.

Not as powerful as Mitchell's superb Cloud Atlas, but an authentic portrayal of adolescence, set in early 1980s England. The book's protagonist, Jason Taylor, is a quiet, uncertain boy who struggles with a stutter. Through his much more even inner voice, Mitchell recreates with unflinching honesty all the joys and terrors of adolescence. Jason maintains a precarious hold near the bottom of the school social ladder, endures relentless torment from bullies, and watches his parents' marriage unravel month by month. The bullies are especially effective characters, as Mitchell makes sure they're just as bad as adult readers have tried to forget they were, and just as overpowering in their cruelty.

But, it's not all trial: there's friendship, first love, and the eventual turning point of hard-won confidence and social acceptance. Nor does Mitchell skimp on all the ordinary details of being 13 -- classes, walks in the woods, encounters with neighbors, crushes on girls, conversations at the family dinner, accidentally seeing one's father drunk and naked -- it's really these moments, experienced intimately through an authentic 13 year old point of view, that drive the book.

Though not to the same degree as Cloud Atlas, there are a few touches of the fanciful. In the course of the novel, Jason meets several oddball characters who seem at least as much like literary figures as real people. Their presence, though not crucial to the story, challenges, in a winking way, both Jason's and the reader's politely restrained attitudes about life. One character, in fact, is an aged version of someone who appears in Cloud Atlas.

The novel has a very episodic structure, with the larger plot arc unfolding at a leisurely pace, and a narrative that consists, for the first three quarters of so, of small daily events that feed Jason's inner life, rather than drastically altering the course of his outer one. But this inner life and its reflections are really the point of the book, and patient readers will find much to like (especially the 1980s British slang) in Mitchell's eyes-open portrait of an age, time, and place. As with Cloud Atlas, Mitchell shows a talent for taking simple, familiar scenes and giving them an elusive air of meaning above the scene's own significance.

Side note: Some readers have complained that Jason sounds a little too eloquent to be a 13 year old. Yeah, I agree that no 13 year old talks like him, but I don't think it was so much Mitchell's intent to capture what a 13 year old *says* as it was to capture how one *thinks*. Sometimes a writer has to take a few creative liberties to get inside someone's head. Our own voices are always more "adult" in there, anyway.

Some look back on their early adolescence with nostalgia, while others would rather forget the awkward stops and starts along the bumpy road where we begin as children and end as adults. Jason Taylor, narrator of David Mitchell's newest novel, reveals a life that is the source of both; he is a thirteen-year-old would-be poet navigating through one tragi-comic year in his young life. Each of the thirteen chapters in the novel chronicles a different month, and each features those moments in childhood that we believe at the time will mark (or scar) us forever. In Jason, Mitchell has conjured one of the most memorable and real narrators in literature; he reflects on girls, his parents' distintigrating marriage, the cruel initiations of adolescence, or the Falkland wars with equal pathos.

Black Swan Green takes place in a small English countryside town in 1982, and the book is flavored with Thatcher politics, British vernacular , and early 80's pop music. Unlike Mitchell's earlier novels, Black Swan Green is in many ways a novel about the pains and pleasures of the ordinary, and Jason scrutinizes the everyday with as much perception as major life events. Thirteen is an age where an embarrassment at school or a fight with one's parents takes on epic proportions, and yet time passes in such a way that last month's tragedies seem to fade into the distant past. Mitchell conjures this sense with such ease that Jason is a completely believable character, even as his thoughts reveal a remarkable sophistication.

In Cloud Atlas, Mitchell showed himself to be a master of the narrative voice, and in Black Swan Green he exceeds all expectations. Instead of writing what could have been an angst-ridden, self-fixated modern Holden Caulfield, Mitchell brings Jason out of himself with a well-rendered cast of supporting characters: his distant, workaholic father and his acidic mother, the merciless bullies at school, his fellow outcast friends, and various colorful townsfolk. Just as significant but more subtle are the internal characters that populate Jason's mind, including Unborn Twin (the voice of self-deprecation and fear) and his omnipresent arch-nemesis, the Hangman. Hangman is the embodiment of Jason's stammer, a speech impediment that often leaves "s" words frozen on his tongue.

I honestly cannot say enough positive things about this book; Mitchell's writing is gorgeous, Jason's insights at turns comic and heartbreaking. Black Swan Green is perhaps Mitchell's most autobiographic, and it certainly feels like the most grounded of his novels. Beware of the seeming simplicity - this book is neither ordinary nor typical. Rather than produce another quaint coming of age tale, Mitchell delivers a subtle and masterful rendering of an age that is nearly impossible to capture.

~ Jacquelyn Gill

This is a wonderful and well written book following the life of a 13 year old boy in 1983 living in a Worcestershire village called Black Swan Green, writing poetry under a pseudonym, fighting a stammer that threatens to make his life a misery, dealing with family tensions and learning a whole lot about himself and others on the way.

I loved the way that the book is written as though the 13 year old boy is writing it. Albeit a talented 13 year old boy, with some very creative use of metaphor - but even here, the writing is deliberately a little overdone to maintain that feeling of youth in the writing.

The author goes to great lengths to fasten the narrative to the year of 1983 - in fact here he does overdo it. Things a 13 year old at the time would take for granted are repeatedly spelled out, so that you feel the author is trying to remind us all the time of the year. But that is a minor criticism for a book that skillfully delves into the life of a 13 year old boy, and makes you remember what it was like - the good an the bad.

This book has hidden depths too. It explores some difficult themes, expertly dancing through them, masterfully pulling the threads together into a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell answers that very question. I choose this book to read because it was listed as a New York Times Notable book in 2006, and I'm certainly glad I did!

Black Swan Green is the name of the small village in Worcestershire where 13-year-old Jason Taylor lives. It's a sleepy little village minus the swans. The year is 1982, and Jason is trying to navigate his way through a maze of difficulties: bullies at school, trying to blend in, overcoming a stammer that could label him forever, parents at war with each other, an older sister that calls him "The Thing", a war in the Falklands, and gypsies that have taken up residence is the village. Can life really be so difficult at 13? You bet it can!

Eliot Bolivar is a poet that submits his writing to the local parish magazine. He is talented and writes eloquently. And he is actually Jason Taylor, our 13-year-old antagonist. But really, could a kid hold up his head in school if he admits to being a POET? I think not!

This book is chocked full of insight. It is exactly one year in the life of Jason Taylor. Mitchell's writing is so fantastic, you can actually see through the eyes of this boy. At first, it was a bit difficult to understand some of the British phrasing and terms, but that didn't stop any enjoyment I felt reading this book. When Jason was called on to read aloud in class, I actually could FEEL his fear in the pit of MY stomach. Trying to navigate through school without being seen, not popular enough to be part of the in-crowd, and not detested enough to be one of the lepers, Jason tries hard to fit in. And he has to fit in in a way that lets him live with himself.

One of my favorite passages in the book comes right at the end: "The world's a Headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or a Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever, or , one day, you DO notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it into your brain about THAT hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't so bad after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps. There are always more."

The entire book is filled with this type of writing and insight. The characters are all well-rounded, simple yet complex. This book will make you laugh and it will make you cry. And it will make you exceedingly glad that you never have to go through that horrible time in life again. I would recommend it whole-heartedly!

Man Booker Prize finalist David Mitchell's books have been praised for their complex themes and their out-of-the-box approach to storytelling. To read and understand one of his books is to feel as though you're taking apart and putting back together pieces of a puzzle in order to grasp a larger whole. Unlike his previous, more experimental novels (GHOSTWRITTEN, NUMBER9DREAM, CLOUD ATLAS), Mitchell's latest offering is more conventional and probably his most plot-driven to date --- except for the fact that nothing really happens. Nothing, that is, until after you've turned the last page. Months later, the novel's protagonist is still nestled comfortably in your brain and in your heart like a close friend who has moved away or a bittersweet memory leftover from childhood, still resonant with meaning.

BLACK SWAN GREEN chronicles thirteen months in the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor --- each one of the thirteen chapters mirrors each of the thirteen months during the time in which the novel takes place --- told from his perspective and at his own meandering pace. Jason, his older sister Julie, and his parents inhabit the posh countryside of Black Swan Green, a slumbering village in South Worcestershire, England. The year is 1982 and England is entrenched in both the Cold War and the short-lived war over the Falklands. Life is fairly ordinary in the small town, aside from the occasional news reel intrusion, and so are the events that transpire throughout the course of the book.

What makes this book so captivating to read is precisely the simplicity of what's being described --- mainly, Jason's transition from adolescence into semi-adulthood. Over the course of thirteen months, he goes from being an awkward, prepubescent young boy with a pesky stammering problem to a soon-to-be young man with a backbone and a bit of experience under his belt. In the beginning, he is seen as an outcast, a weakling, a scab, and is relentlessly made fun of by his stronger, tougher peers. By the end, he has learned how to stand up for himself and has earned the respect not only of some of his tormentors, but of a certain young lady as well.

Although many will find the pleasure in witnessing Jason's ongoing mental and physical maturation process as familiar as watching that of any young person, what stands out as unique is the progression of his own particular self-awareness and the purity of his heart.

He is almost too creative and genuine for his own good (hence why he is constantly being picked on), yet completely unaware of his talents --- a rare occurrence in a boy that age. As a contrast to his gawky exterior, the way he expresses himself internally is downright poetic ("Listening to houses breathe makes you weightless"), and the steadfast earnestness with which he approaches life, albeit at an adolescent level, is incredibly humbling.

Over the course of thirteen chapters, Mitchell mixes just the right combination of insecurity, indignation and yearning to produce a series of vignettes, some of which are too precious to forget. His description in "Bridle Path" of Jason's day on his own while his family is away, first as the master of his house (putting his mother's mousse in his hair and drawing an Adam Ant stripe across his face; eating McVitie's Jamaican Ginger Cake and drinking a milk, coke, Ovaltine milkshake for breakfast; and listening to his sister's records at full volume), then as the brave explorer of the woods surrounding his home, is delightfully endearing and perfectly captures the spirit of what it's like to be young and carefree. In "Spooks," the description of Jason's initiation into a revered and secret club could have been lifted straight out of a young boy's journal, for all its excited eagerness, and the story of his first kiss in "Disco" is so full of nervous energy and longing that some readers might feel the urge to look away so as not to disturb the beauty of the moment.

The only event that may come as a shock is the very real nature of Jason's parents' failing marriage towards the end of the novel and the events that transpire following its collapse. But, in the wise words of now fourteen-year-old-Jason, "The world's a headmaster who works on your faults...you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us...that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it. Joke is...There are always more."

BLACK SWAN GREEN is a true gem that seeps in at a snail's pace --- to be read and cherished for its wit, quiet and empathetic insights, and far-reaching appeal.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

Initially, I had a hard time getting into this book. Perhaps it was all the British slang and references to life in England in the early 1980s. Once I got past that, however, I found myself engaged in the story and having a hard time not starting the next chapter once I finished the one I was on.

Calling David Mitchell's "Black Swan Green" a coming of age story is accurate enough. Yet, that label is thrown around a lot, generally covering many topics, so don't roll your eyes. This particular story is narrated by young Jason Taylor, a 13-year-old boy living in the English countryside, dealing with the every day torture of trying to fit in. The book covers a year in Jason's life, where we get to see him deal with all sorts of things - some that almost everyone can identify with (a first crush, or the growing pains of seeing your family more clearly and realizing how dysfunctional they are) - and other things rather unique in nature (stumbling upon a group of gypsies camped out on the outskirts of town, and hearing their perspective as all the townies freak out by their mere presence, or having secret meetings with an elderly woman interested in your poetry).

The best thing about the story is how much I liked Jason as a character/narrator. Watching him grow from the stuttering (and bullied) boy to someone wiser and more comfortable in his own skin was a joy.

David Mitchell also has a very particular writing style that I imagine is recognizable throughout all his work. The way he plays with words and images is quite unique and colorful.

In a coming of age story you don't expect to find high drama unless it is set in a period of war, or there's a murder or something like that. And this book doesn't rely on any of these to create an abnormal environment. Instead a good novel, like this one takes an ordinary person and treats the normal problems of growing up using the powers of his writing skill and command of the language to give us a story that teaches us something about ourself, and gives us a character about whom we care.

So it is with this book. Jason Taylor, 13, is growing up with all the usual problems. A bit different, he stutters, he gets picked on by the school bullies. His parents have created the usual dysfunctional family, they are divorcing. His older sister, well, if you have one you know, and if you don't there's no way to tell you about them. He's beginning to discover that girls are different and that he doesn't understand them.

Thirteen is a pretty bad year. You want to sit down with the kid and tell him that in the long run no one will care if you stutter, that before long you'll be leaving your parents to go on with your own life. You want to tell him that sooner or later some girl and you will get together and each of you will think the other is pretty cool. And by the way, don't worry, at sixty three you won't understand girls any better than you did at thirteen.

The fact that you want to sit down and talk to this kid says enough about the writing. It's just a novel, the kid doesn't exist, but you want to go talk to him anyway.

Jason Taylor is 13 and grows up in a small village, Black Swan Green. He has all the usual problems boys of that age have: his sister is a [...], his parents do not understand him and there is a very strict hierarchy among the village boys (from absolute losers to the most popular boy of the village) and you have to constantly watch your act to make sure that you do not become a loser. And apart from that he is a secret poet and is pestered by "Hangman": a to Jason very real personality who impedes his speech by giving him a stammer, making him constantly aware of what he is saying.

In the beginning of the book Jason does what all small boys do: play games, dislike girls and fantasize about hidden tunnels. But as the book progresses, Jason is becoming less of a child. The growing apart of his parents certainly helps, as do the wise lessons of an elderly woman who explains to him that a poet should always be proud of his work and withstand criticisms.

David Mitchell is a wonderful writer: from every sentence it is clear that he loves writing. He is also deeply empathic with Jason: this is not a grown-up, but truly the voice and feelings of a 13-year old. (as far as a grown-up like myself can judge and remember this). A wonderful book to read.

I wiped down a knife tonight and the title, Black Swan Green, jumped into my head. So I have to go back and write a brief review of a book I read some eight years ago. It's a fine book. It's a coming of age story, right? It's a brief year in the life of an adolescent boy in the UK which, in some ways, rings true. In other ways, it doesn't. Some characters are just too...I don't know...calculated. The strutting cousin Hugo, for instance, seems to be more sit-com character than real life.

I have a lot of time for David Mitchell's writing. But this one felt like it had Salinger in its sights from the start. The first person narrative and the teenage vernacular might be accurate but they feel somehow contrived in this particular context. That said, Mitchell is talented enough that the reader is compelled to continue.

The great moments don't revolve around the narrator. The writing truly shines when the birds take the fish, and when the adults fight over the knife-sharpening gypsy's visit. Overall, it's a good book but it comes off as derivative, which is too bad because Mitchell is just damn good generally. He's good here too but...eh.

This novel is told through the voice of a 13 year-old over the course of a year in England of the early 80's. As an American reader, the British language took a little getting used to, and I was worried that I might connect less with the chief character's adolescence. The language quickly became natural, and the universality of the life of a 13 year old rang true. This did bring back memories from my early teen years of the late 60's. The novel was well written, and parts were great. It did fall a bit short of my high hopes, though. Each chapter focused on a different month of the year, and usually had a story unconnected to others. The book felt more like a series of short stories in the life of this boy. Some were great and others were not as engaging. I loved the start of this book, and then became impatient, wondering where this was going. I finally realized that this was going nowhere, and I needed to just enjoy each part without looking ahead. Until the end, there was little character development, because it covered just one year. I'm glad I read this book. There were great moments in the life of this boy who struggled with his parents' breakup, an embarrassing stutter, and bullies. It read like a memoir.

David Mitchell is one of the best authors writing today, and this book is a great addition to his repertoire and the interconnected universe he's created between this book - perhaps his least fantastic - and others like Cloud Atlas, Bone Clocks, and Jacob De Zoet. I love finding the quiet references his books make to each other. This is somewhat autobiographical, as I understand, and offers a great view of life through the eyes of a young, stammering teenager in Thatcher's Britain. Touching and funny, sometimes at once, and with a pace that speeds as you build towards the end.

Still haven't read number9dream or ghostwritten - they're next after I read the new Marie Kondo

"The world's a headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it into your brain about that hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't such a s***house after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps.
There are always more." David Mitchell, Black Swan Green.

Black Swan Green is a wonderful coming of age story that is so honest and ordinary it almost pains you to relive that profoundly difficult stage with the protagonist. However, it is so beautiful in it's simplicity, imagination and truth (not to mention absolutely hilarious at times) that it rewards you tenfold for doing so.

In a world full of fashionable cynics, the protagonist's naive and hopeful outlook (even while simultaneously being shellshocked by the world) rang much truer than many of the famous "coming of age" voices of the mid-20th century.

I found the entire experience undeniably refreshing.

It took me a while to warm up to blackswangreen. I was impressed from the first, but the details were overwhelming. As with Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, I was snowed by his mastery of voice and his technical wizardry, but a bit at a loss for a place to stand. That had changed by the second chapter, though, because as time passes we start to enjoy the limitations imposed by the narrator's age. Life is hell for thirteen-year-old Jason, but we know by the warmth, intelligence, and enthusiasm of his narrative that he will survive it. Even as we squirm at his naivete and the cruelty of his peers, we are, unbeknownst to him, spotting the elements that will preserve and sustain him. He has a sense of humor, justice, beauty, compassion - all the good stuff - without ever sacrificing his vulnerability and his instinct for authenticity. His culture is full of what now appears to be junk - British sweets, 80's rock, obsolete slang - but he understands that you must make a stand in the place where you live, no matter how tacky or mean.

It's difficult to convey the delights of this novel. A plot summary makes it seem too generic, a description of the language and style too mannered and academic. Like its protagonist, the book is kind of prickly and jagged around the edges: it's also wholly loveable. You want to protect Jason from the vicious and crumbling social edifice in which he lives, but you also want to watch him survive and prosper. I didn't exactly identify with him, but I felt like a brother or a friend. The inevitable comparisons with literary boys like Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, and Bone don't really interfere with the pleasures of this book. He doesn't sound quite as cocky as his American counterparts, but he's every bit as morally alert, socially savvy, and emotionally wary. One feels the author breathing along with Jason, both because of the intensity of the narrative and the presence of characters and motifs from previous novels. The reader settles into that David Mitchell space in the mind, ready to be delighted, moved, and disturbed once again. When Eva from Cloud Atlas appears midway through this book to advise Jason on writing and art, it feels like a conversation with Mr. Mitchell about what he's discovering from his lifework of playing with words, sounds, memories, dreams, and ideas. The chapter is delightfully entertaining in its own right, but it also deepens our admiration for this writer and his gifts, bonding the reader to a continuing relationship with him. Finally, I must mention the bittersweet nature of the divorce plot, which is beautifully rendered. We mourn, we understand, and we're mainly concerned for how Jason will handle it. It's not ruining anything to report that he'll do just fine.

Much better than Cloud Atlas, in my opinion, because the focus is on one individual: a boy of around 13-14 growing up in a small village near Gloucester. Mitchell does a great job of describing the difficulties of teenage life for young males in a place where random cruelty and rejection is standard fare. Our protagonist has a speech impediment, stammering, which forces him to modify his sentences so that he can avoid words that begin with two specific consonants. His parents are not getting along and his older sister is just about to leave for college. I really enjoyed getting to know this character and his friends and enemies. The ending is completely satisfying (but not in a Hollywood sense).

The coming-of-age genre is a rich and well-populated genre, and while I'm not sure that Mitchell has added anything to it here, this is a fine example. Set in 1982 in a small Worcestershire town, the story covers just over a year in the life of 12-year old Jason Taylor. This mirrors Mitchell's own age and background, and since Mitchell has said this is the first novel he drafted, one can assume that like many others in the genre, this coming-of-age novel is highly autobiographical.

Jason's trials and tribulations are fairly familiar ones: he has a speech impediment which causes him much mental and social distress. His place on the elaborate pecking order of local adolescent boys is of paramount importance, and the seemingly arbitrary nature of his ascent or descent play a large role in the story. Naturally, girls are a topic of great interest and concern, though not overwhelmingly so. The buildup to the Falklands War and its less-than-glorious outcome feature prominently (Jason inadvertently plays peeping tom on a local lad turned sailor, and it's somewhat disappointing when this leads down the obvious narrative path). His big sister is off to college, and he's blithely unaware of the imminent end of his parent's marriage.

These themes and touchstones will be very familiar to anyone (like me), who read Sue Townsend's "The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole" some 20 years ago. The difference is in the execution -- the Mole books tend to be more comedic and antic, while Mitchell's approach is both more realistic and elliptical. Readers expecting the semi-experimentalism of Mitchell's other works may be disappointed by the relatively straightforward chronological episodic nature of Jason's story. That said, Mitchell does subvert narrative expectations several times by ending a particular story or incident prior to its resolution, and sometimes, but sometimes not alluding to the outcome in subsequent chapters. The reason for this occasionally annoying construction is summed up in the book's final line "That's because it's not the end."

Mitchell's established skills are in evidence, as various characters come alive within mere sentences of being introduced. However, unlike his other work, while the sense of time is very vivid, the sense of place isn't, beyond a kind of generic early-'80s "Home Counties" naivety. There are other nice touches throughout, such as Jason's internal dialogue with aspects of himself ("Hangman" is the evil trickster who brings out his stammer and "Maggot" is the cowardly or fragile part of his self). There's also a nice cameo by a Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who was a minor character in one portion of Mitchell's amazing earlier work, "Cloud Atlas." All in all, if you like the coming of age genre, this is a perfectly good one from an excellent writer.

In an interview, Mitchell protested that this is *not* a "coming of age" story: "There's always a kind of a journey at character level in fiction, and if that journey happens to occur to a fifteen year old, then people say, 'Aha, it's a Coming of Age Novel'." Indeed, this is really a year in the life of a thirteen-year-old. It's not about growing up--it's about being an early teen and dealing with everything life throws your way. I found this novel exceptionally good. I've never seen the word "genius" associated with a writer as much as it seems to be associated with Mitchell, and now I know why. Even though the plot in and of itself is quite straightforward and has none of the experimental elements of other Mitchell novels, the characters the author builds are so incredibly three-dimensional that you'll have a hard time believing they're just characters in a book. I can't quite tell you how Mitchell does it. That's where the genius comes in, I guess. I recommend this book strongly--it's impossible not to like it. In the same interview I mentioned above, Mitchell says of the book, "it's the best thing I've written. I'm quite confident of that." Whether you liked Cloud Atlas or were afraid to read it, you should read Black Swan Green.

It's no surprise that this novel was long-listed for the Booker Prize last year. Mitchell takes the reader deep into the mind and life of Jason Taylor, thirteen-year-old "townie" in 1982 in the small Worcestershire village (the nonexistent swans are a "local joke"). The structure is somewhat episodic, with thirteen chapters each set in a separate month, January to January, as the unusually introspective Jason tries to maintain his middling status in the local social hierarchy. Between his own adolescent naivete, his father's soul-crushing job as a regional grocery store executive, the growing friction between his parents, his sister's getting ready to go off to university, his poetry-writing (kept carefully anonymous), his crush on a slightly dangerous and totally unattainable girl, the possibility of being accepted by the local secret club, his smarmy uncle and cousin, a run-in with the gypsies, and -- on top of everything else -- the Falklands War and its direct effect on his village, . . . well, he has a busy year. But he isn't at all the same person at the end of it that he was at the beginning. Mitchell has a real gift for the language -- including Jason's negotiations with his stammer, induced by the "Hangman." You don't often find marvelous lines like, "The world's a headmaster who works on your faults," or "Dad watched his future wife and his only son from his ex-garage."

Black Swan Green surpasses your standard coming of age story by sharing the long, dragging truth of it with us. This is not a dawning, a sudden enlightenment. This is knowledge begrudgingly leaked into the brain of a boy obsessed with the social structure of school. His obsession is well placed. The stammer master inside his head, whom he calls the Hangman, is constantly plotting to steal words from him at the worst possible time. Our 13-year-old protagonist rises and falls in rank through deeds often accidental that set him up for judgment by his peers.

He meets a series of recluses, eccentrics and gypsies that dole out information he may need to survive like pennies from a pauper's purse. He is at that age when everyone else in the world seems wise, and all he knows are questions. He wonders about sex, of course, but he can't ask kids because he'd seem like a wanker, and he can't ask adults because you can't ask adults. At one point his father says, wistfully, "I wish I was 13 again." "Then he must have forgotten what it's like," thinks the 13-year-old.

His life is a horror, no less so because it is so typical. Who hasn't felt the scourge of words from a bully's tongue; the humiliation of a girl's giggle at just the wrong moment?

Mitchell toys with time in a different way than in Cloud Atlas. There is no back and forth in this linear tale. Time is sliced into segments, one short story after another, one month after another, in a 13-story year. Some stand on their own, while others seem to dangle. Through them all runs the angst of an out boy, trying to understand life in England in 1982, or life anywhere at anytime.

Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is among my all time favorites, so my expectations for Black Swan Green were high. At first my hopes for the book far outran the story. Once I set aside my disappointment, I found the narrative begin to take hold. Perhaps it is his second best book. That is praise high enough.

I don't think I remember any other novel where the passing of time, and the effect of its passing on people, was such a palpable presence, and to such poignant effect, as in Black Swan Green - Der Zauberberg is the only parallel that springs to mind. Only rarely does a book bring tears to my eyes - this one did. Impossible to put down, this wonderful novel, set in a 1982 Worcestershire village, chronicles 13 months from the life of 13-year old Jason Taylor. Set upon by sadistic school bullies, bemused by his parents' increasingly conflicted marriage, wondering about girls and the Falkland war, and forever battling his debilitating stammer, Jason reflects and comments on the world around him, and himself, in observations and asides that are in turn hilarious, poetic and heart-rending, or even all at the same time. We witness how, slowly, he comes to terms with the pain and madness of being an adolescent, fully aware that behind it already looms the pain and madness of being an adult. Jason's character development is moulded by small incident as well as great tragedy, and by the colourful cast of characters that make up the village and school communities. The author is never content to offer a mere template: every character we meet leaps off the page, his or her essence nailed with a few well-chosen words - be it Mr. Dunwoody, the school lecher (who reads Bataille's Story of the Eye, and tells Jason it's about opticians); Mrs. Bendinck, the hypocritical, gossiping, vicar's wife; the bullyish, narcissistic Uncle Brian; or the fickle and dangerous but oh, so alluring Dawn Madden. To mention just a very few. Incidentally, we also meet an old acquantance from Cloud Atlas.

Mitchell's writing is astoundingly beautiful, the life-enhancing "Bridlepath" chapter suffused with a joy and nostalgia that is unforgettable. Indeed, the novel can almost be read as a collection of interrelated short-stories, each of them with an atmosphere all its own. This variety is akin to the technique typical of Mitchell's previous works. The opening chapter is almost a ghost story, the "Relatives" chapter a revealing family portrait, "Solarium" a philosophical interlude. The beauty, honesty, sanity and wisdom of this book are a true tonic in a time when novels seem to be increasingly plagued by weirdness, far-fetched plots, and semi-deranged characters. No better way to forget all about Oskar Schell (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) than by getting acquainted with Jason Taylor.

I devoured these 371 pages in less than 2 days, and can't wait for Mr. Mitchell's next novel to arrive. Meanwhile, I will be re-reading this one.

If you ever needed to understand the psychology of bullying, it’s all here in Mitchell’s semi-autobiographical first-person story of 13-year-old Jason Taylor–secret poet, indifferent athlete, and creative genius at avoiding the words that might, on any given day, trigger his stammer. The boys in school are rough on each other and the girls are learning how to be. I’m sorry that odd Madame Crommelynck didn’t stay on the scene longer. A tutorial on British teen slang in the early 1980′s, a voice I thought I’d tire of, but instead became attached to.

A superbly written coming of age novel set in rural England in the 1980s resonates across time and place. Jason's voice is clear and truthful, humorous, and serious. The novel is also shock full of small town characters, Lord of the Flies-style bullies,and naturalistic descriptions that transport you to the setting. This can be enjoyed by disperate generations-I will recommend it to my 14 year old grandson.

Question: Has David Mitchell ever written a bad book? Not to my knowledge. Some critics accused BLACK SWAN GREEN of being less ambitious than his previous efforts, the narrative lacking the same epic scope but I believe they have utterly missed the point. This is a coming of age novel, a cliche if there ever was one. But Mitchell deftly handles the material and captures the "voice" of 13 year old Jason Taylor perfectly. We really feel for this kid--a secret s-s-stutterer, intensely aware of the school pecking order and dreading falling so far down the social ladder that he is reduced to the status of human stepping stool. You will LOVE this book. From the first line to the concluding paragraphs. A masterful creation.

I have owned "Cloud Atlas" for quite some time and have been building up the motivation to get on with it - the book?s complexity and sophistication having been putting me off. I was therefore intrigued when I learned "Black Swan Green" had been published, but enthusiasm for it died after reading a pretty terrible review in The Economist. Luckily, soon thereafter I read the far more positive review in Time Magazine and went on to buy and read the book.

I enjoyed this book a bunch. The character is beautifully constructed and almost requires that the reader empathize deeply with him. Some of the chapters, such as the one where the bullying episodes intensify, the one in which there is news of major family event (can?t give it away)or the one involving the Falklands are extraordinarily touching and rivetting at the same time.

Some chapters seem less relevant and to revert to "Cloud Atlas"-like constructions. For me these chapters took away from the pace of the book. But all in all, I think Time was more on the spot than The Economist. This was a great, very enjoyable read and I will now tackle "Cloud Atlas" knowing that David Mitchell is a first tier literary talent.

I have to admit I was taken aback by the dazzling literacy of David Mitchell's last book, "Cloud Atlas", which successfully interweaves six unrelated storylines whose only point of consistency is the author's conceptual audacity to use reincarnation as the basis of his dark vision of the world. This one surprised me with its simplicity and almost nostalgic tone of a fictional adolescence during Thatcher-era England. Set in 1982, the plot focuses on thirteen-year old Jason Taylor, painfully cloistered in the small enclave of Black Swan Green in Worchestershire where he is victimized by peer pressure but set free by his vivid imagination. Creatively separated into thirteen discrete chapters, the book follows his day-to-day adventures in initially fragmented fashion. Ultimately, the threads of his tribulations and growth experiences coalesce into a cohesive memoir of that certain period in history when the British were heavily engaged in the conflict with Argentina over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

Each chapter has a distinct character filled with Mitchell's memorable prose and etched with fascinating characters like Eva van Outryve de Crommelynk, a character first introduced in "Cloud Atlas" and an erudite expatriate whose knowledge and history are not entirely trustworthy. However, the most impressive aspect of Mitchell's novel is the unerring way he captures the voice of his pubescent hero without resorting to patronizing observations or wiser-than-thou commentary. With his involuntary stammer and multiple imaginary selves, Jason comes across as a normal, self-absorbed youth only touched tangentially by the broader events around him. He calls himself Hangman when he stammers since he feels strangled by his inability to speak at the more opportune moments. There is also the Unborn Twin, who constantly belittles him for being weak and childish, and then there is the mischievous Maggot which allows him to respond to the tit-for-tat cruelty of his friends. In alternating strokes of colorful scope and minute detail, Mitchell accurately shows Jason to be a struggling artist finding his way through his abundant imagination. It's a tantalizing read, and even though the Anglo orientation may alienate some readers, I find the author's approach continues to be most universal in nature.

The 13-yr old protagonist has been described by one reviewer as a British Holden Caulfield - not a bad description. Each of the 13 chapters takes us through a month in the life of Jason Taylor - his ups and downs with trying to be popular - or really just trying not to be a target of the "hard" kids - the slow disintegration of his parent's marriage, his first kiss, his battles with the "Hangman" - his nickname for his mortifying stammer. He doesn't "grow up" in this novel, but does learn to quit worrying what others think - and begins to think - and stand up - for himself which, in and of itself, is a significant milestone in the life of an adolescent.

When I started in the first chapter, I thought I would be put off by the dated lingo of a 13-year old (the novel is set in 1982) as it seemed a bit self-conscious - but Jason becomes so 3-dimensional so quickly that I adapted right away. Black Swan Green is a wonderfully touching novel - more traditional, and therefore more accessible than Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten.

Using motifs and a couple of cameos from his previous novels (e.g., Madame Crommelynk from Cloud Atlas and the John Lennon album Number 9 Dream, Mitchell adds another unique and innovative chapter to his body of work.

I don't like books, in general, with male protagonists. I just can't identify with what goes on in their lives. (Female brain/male brain differences provide a clear understanding of this.)

But this book had me from page one. I read it slowly, over about a month or more, and loved our main character, hated those other awful bullying boys. I know nothing about the growing up years of boys. My own two sons were reticent to talk about anything during their junior high and high school years. I can only hope my sons had help like Madame Eva and a teacher or two. The ending is wonderful.

David Mitchell is just great. His skill at rhythm and language nuance is altogether stunning. And he writes about real stuff. He does not shy away from the raw unvarnished truth about humanity's capacity for cruelty & evil. But also in his vision we find serendipity, everyday magic, humor, and a deep appreciation for so many lovely things that are worth appreciating like nature, kindness, & the beautiful possibilities of people improving over time.

Prior to reading this book, I had never heard of David Mitchell, but now I am an avid fan. I would highly recommend his Cloud Atlas: A Novel as well, but of his books that I have read, this is the best. He captures the voice of a child so convincingly that I was absorbed by reading as I have never been before. I have read countless "trash" children's novels that attempt a child's narrative perspective, but none come even close to being as successful as this. I have heard this called the British version of Catcher in the Rye, but that does not nearly do it justice. While the subject matter is somewhat similar, this book is much better. I would highly recommend it.

BLACK SWAN GREEN tells the story of Jason, an undercover poet at the brink of puberty, who is trying to survive school, overcome a stammer and thereby avoid social suicide. While clumsily venturing out into his small town world, life at home also gets more complicated as he struggles but not quite manages to understand what's going on between his parents. Following his escapades and experiences throughout the year, Mitchell writes a very touching story, which never becomes corny or too 'heavy' thanks to the refreshing perspective of a 13-year old. Jason's somewhat skewed view of the world (not to mention girls!) is at times extremely funny. It also reminds us how resilient teenagers can be in the face of the cruelty of other teenage kids. A wonderful book!

Another virtuoso performance from David Mitchell. Michell admits that, although not his first book, this is his bildungsroman, his "autobiographic" novel, about an adolescent living in a small 1980s English Midlands town. I was totally immersed from the get-go, completely captivated by the teenage angst of the protagonist (Jason Taylor) and delighted by the multitude of cultural references that Mitchell employs to place us firmly and unmistakeably in a specific time and place. Very occasionally I felt there was an overuse of the cultural touchstones; sometimes I didn't feel I needed yet another mention of an 80s band or a colloquialism of the day. But that's a small gripe for a wonderful novel and an affecting story that transported me immediately to my own adolescence in a Midlands town (although some twenty years before Jason's).
One big gripe is Mitchell's allusion in Black Swan Green to a character from his earlier book, Cloud Atlas. Having struggled through Cloud Atlas (although impressed -- as one was clearly meant to be -- I didn't enjoy the C.A. experience) I obviously knew the name of the character and the facts surrounding him that are alluded to in Black Swan Green. The heavy-handed device stopped me in my tracks, pulled the suspension of disbelief from under my feet, and made me want to throw the damn book across the room. But it had been such a good read until then, that I persevered. And I'm very glad I did, but why does a writer as good as David Mitchell have to take that step too far to try to impress?

I enjoyed this book very much. I liked how the story was constructed over one year in the boy's life, and there were several interesting plots going on, that all seemed to resolve by the end. I found myself laughing out loud from time to time. It was a fast read for me, and I thought that the 13-y/o's narrative made it even more interesting. I liked all the characters that came in and out of the novel, especially the old woman who was going to teach French. I was shocked by the depravity of some of Taylor's "friends" and their families, though I guess I shouldn't have been...that's everywhere. I wish this story didn't end!

Peter Mitchell delivers a powerful novel of human relationships from the perspective of a boy who lives in a small town in England during the 1980's. The story of a talented 13-year-old poet who is brutalized by his peers for his stammer grips the reader in its gorgeous narrative and poignant observations. This passionate young man must hide his talent and his feelings in a peer culture that celebrates brutality and domination.

The young man develops and grows in this environment despite the stultifying peer culture and at one point observes that "The world's a headmaster that works on your faults."

Mitchell is a fortunate find. His talent for plot and language are vast and create an enjoyable and entertaining experience. Highly recommended!

In short: good book, but doesn't really start "mattering" until ¾ of the way in. Then you will suddenly realize that you've warmed to it considerably.

I was surprised to read reviews from high school students who appeared to hail from the U.S saying their AP teachers had assigned Black Swan Green; unless things have changed much since I was in school (judging by news reports, no), the U.S. library associations and public schools are pretty wary of assigning material with any "objectionable" (sexual, unusually violent/obscene, or pseudo-occult) content, even for honors/AP. For the most part, Black Swan Green does read a little bit like a better-than-average young adult novel (and not because the narrator's a kid), but it does serve up a healthy portion of panting adolescent sex-talk and fantastically filthy language.

The main character, Jason Taylor, is likeable, but that's because he's in no way objectionable. The worst things he ever does are try to get back at the obnoxious bullies in his class and (although this didn't bother me) not stand up for himself enough. The supporting characters are not as singular, with the exception of snappy older sister Julia and the HILARIOUS Madame de Crommelynck ("I tell them, go to the hell!").

The story will probably get labeled "coming-of-age" because that is the go-to appellation for stories concerning adolescents who learn or thing or two about life by the end of the book. I don't disagree with that label necessarily, but I think Mitchell might have been trying to say a few things about the nature of artistic expression; art-as-life and vice versa; and the state of "outsider-ness" whilst being on the inside (or is that "the state of outside-when it's inside one"?)

Trouble is, BSG doesn't get to those issues until more than halfway through the book. The first few chapters can make for pretty slow work, what with the lack of compelling plot threads; multiple minor characters who have one paragraph or scene and then disappear (antique store lady, anyone? Shop-lifting girls?); and obsessive (although not entirely unwelcome) deployment of brand names, clothing styles, television shows, pop music and political references with the apparent intention of impressing VIGOROUSLY on the reader the fact that this is Thatcher's 80s. I'm pretty sure Mitchell is no older than 38 or so, so I get the obvious and admirable nostalgia for the 80s (my own glory days), but at some points he seems to just want to sprinkle in gratuitous 80s refs for no reasons related to plot or character development. Further, events and plot points are started and then dropped with as little ceremony as some characters are.

Press on, though. I think it'll be worth your while; at least, it was for me. Sometime about ¾ of the way in, you realize that you do care what happens to Jason Taylor and possibly even his family; that there is some sort of redemption to be had, even for the obnoxious teen tormentors; and that Mitchell throws in just enough social commentary (no matter how rote and unassailable--the wrongness of anti-Romany hysteria, for example) and meaningful moments (teacher sending Taylor on a special errand) that by the end of the book, you're feeling kinda glad you read this, and pretty impressed he managed to pull it all together.

One point obviously in Mitchell's favor: his dexterous and overall excellent use of dialect, dialogue and colloquial language--much like the similarly hugely-hyped (some might say over-hyped) Zadie Smith. Each regional (west, North country, Birmingham) and national (Irish) accent stands out. And yes, Madame's Flemish-Belgian accent is WAY over the top, but an utter delight.

Unless you're against very highly praised books that are not quite as rapturous as NYT and others purport, you will end up enjoying BSG. I'm keeping it just for the epic dialogue.

BLACK SWAN GREEN is the most resonant, lifelike, and quietly, normal-ly poignant story of adolescence I can recall reading. Which is saying a lot, I think, since the story is told by a 13-year-old stuttery British boy in Worcestershire in 1982, and I'm a 27-year-old American woman in Brooklyn in 2010 who is maybe very shy and perhaps slightly right-left dyslexic but not enough to matter. The writing in Black Swan Green is poetic and beautiful without ever being saccharine, bloated, or distracting and the world through Jason Taylor's eyes is as muddy and chaotic as real life, but clearer through his thoughtfulness. At times the period references are too on-the-nose but never enough to distract you from the story. And this is, for me, the rare book about a fictional writer where I'd actually like to see the fake-author (Jason Taylor)'s poems, which Mitchell is far too smart and respectful of Taylor and the reader to ever put in.

I absolutely adore this novel. Mitchell's semi-autobiographical coming of age story reminds you of what it was like to be 13. He manages to form the angst, the awkwardness, the joy, the horror, and the heartbreaking earnestness of early adolescence into a beautifully poetic narrative. Honest in the display of his protagonist's triumphs and failures, Mitchell reopens the scar of growing up. And yet the pain is bittersweet, making you both long for the excitement of being young, and thank your lucky stars that those days are over. Nostalgia at its finest.

When I first picked up Black Swan Green I had very little knowledge of the contents of the book. I knew I had to read it by the end of summer, that's about it. As soon as I began reading I connected to Jason, the main character. As Jason stumbled along through adolescence I was reminded of my own experience. Acceptance, girls and family issues are three of the problems all teenagers must deal with. However, watching a character like Jason maneuver these problems makes you re-live the pain of middle-school. The book reminded me of a less awkward ¬Perks of Being a Wallflower. Although the slang is difficult to comprehend towards the beginning (at least for an American teen with his own set of slang) by the end you are ready to exchange nasty remarks with some popular bloke. The book is full of humor, patches of humility, frustration and sadness. David Mitchell's writing was perfect for the subject matter of the book, connecting you even further to the feeling of being thirteen. If you are either a teenager or have made it through your teen years you will enjoy this account of a male, teenage, English... well... you.

This is the 3rd story (novel) I have read by David Mitchell. After a time lapse of unknown length, I will return to this author for another stint of late night reading. I have difficulty putting his books down. Just one more page seems always to turn into 3 o'clock in the morning.

A tender, candid, lasting story, the spot-on historical and pop-culture references notwithstanding. The world of confusion, odd insights, hurt and joy at teenage is dizzying, yet marvelously encapsuled in Jason Taylor, who grows before our eyes from a meek follower to a principled young man anybody could wish as a friend. Every single character, no matter how ugly, is beautifully developed, and the unexpectedly straight-forward telling is, to me, David Mitchell's best.

Black Swan Green was a very insightful novel with honest portrayals of its characters and their situations. It follows a 13-year-old boy named Jason through one year in his life and shows how he deals with those around him, how they influence him and how he chooses to portray himself to them. He is a closeted poet, who writes using the pen name Elliot Bolivar and enjoys poetry because it is the best way that he thinks there is to express himself. While this is a common reason that many people turn to the multi-expressive and multi-meaningfulness of poetry, it is especially important for Jason, because he suffers constantly with his spoken words because he has a stammer.

At first I thought that this book was hard to understand because, being an American, I only speak American English and had a hard time with British slang that make up Jason's everyday vocabulary. And while this was difficult in the beginning, soon I was speaking his language and understanding words like snogging (kissing) and pongs (smells). By using these distinct words, Mitchell really pulled me into the mind of a thirteen-year-old British boy to the point where I felt like I knew him completely and was completely shocked when he could do something a little out of character.

Jason is a very likable character from the start because he is the underdog. He is constantly conscious of his stammer, he takes mental notes of what the `hard' kids say and do, he lives in the shadow of his older sister and he is always trying to live up to what a normal thirteen-year-old boy is supposed to be. But he is also very smart. He understands the complex relationships that circle around him, from his pre-divorced parents to the rivalries among the other boys. He understands the various hierarchies that he lives in and the ways in which other people climb them and fall down them. With such a comprehensive grasp of his world, it is all the more interesting that he is so clueless about his own role in it and even more importantly who that character is. So yes, it is a coming of age story, but not just for Jason. Mitchell uses this book and Jason's coming of age to question whether people really do "come of age," and what the means for every person. With every chapter comes a new story, but they are all strung together by Jason's hilarious humor, witty commentary, comprehensive insight and honest reactions, which makes this book an awesome choice for anyone who want to be a teenager again and see how really hard it was or is.

Black Swan Green is a novel about a thirteen-yr-old English boy right on the brink of family turmoil, girls who flirt with you and then shove you off their tractor, the popularity game, and older sisters you don't realize how much you love until they leave home. However, it's not a book just for the guys. It's actually pretty entertaining from a female point of view. It's a window into the trials and tribulations of male puberty and with all of the scenarios that happen in the book, you see exactly how much life can sort of happen to you all at once, no matter your age or what you are going through personally.

I can honestly say that reading Black Swan Green was fun. Honest to God, FUN! It's a really hard book to put down once you get into the story line and the way the chapters end always leaves you wanting to read on. Being that I am a teenager myself, following Jason along for this year of his life was interesting, amusing, and even thought-provoking because Jason's was a life that was far different from my own, but one I could get into just from reading the book. You really feel like you know Jason, you feel bad for his stammer, you want everyone to know how good a poet he is as Bolivar, and you root for him in all aspects. I even enjoyed the way the book was written, like how Jason explains the hangman who only troubles him with certain words that start with certain words on certain days. The book on a whole has great imagery and such vivid descriptions that it's not hard to feel the cold weather of England, or the heat that surely rushes to Jason's face out of embarrassment when he has to say things in front of the class.

Overall, I recommend this book highly. The chronology is a little difficult to grasp at first, but you get around to putting the pieces together just in time. I had to read this for school but i'm glad to own it and will probably read it again in the future when i'm just in the mood for a good book.

this story reminds me in so many ways of catcher in the rye, which is one of my favorite books ever. it is not just the fact that it is about an adolescent, but also the attempt to show the world through the lens of a person with some sort of handicap, whether it be a stutter in this case, or something more. it is told in such a complex layer of meaning while maintaining a fluid motion. that is one of the many things that makes this book great.

David Mitchell has such a magnificent way with words, I think he must live a richer life than the rest of us. He is not just a talent; he is, and will be remembered far into the future, as a master wordsmith. This is perhaps my favorite novel of his to date. I wondered when reading his previous works if he would be able to sustain a single voice for the duration of a novel, and here he proves that he can, and to stunning effect. Many wonderful novels have rendered the pains and frustrations of adolescence, but none that I've ever read have come as close as this to presenting the beautiful creativity of the young adult mind as it grapples with the world as, among other things, a sea of language.

Mitchell is fantastically talented, and Cloud Atlas was arguably a masterpiece, but here he falters a bit. It's a testament to his ability that his worst is still better than most everyone else, but despite all his linguistic dexterity this book has too many stops and starts, too many blind alleys and unrealized partial forays into myth. Stripped bare, the story is essentially predictable, even with a hint of cliche, and lacks the pyrotechnic imaginative power of his other books. I hope Mitchell concentrates on his strengths in the future--big-themed wildness, transcendence, glorious upredictability. Here he tries to dress up convention with set pieces that fall flat as often as they succeed. Even so, he's still just about the closest thing to a great writer going these days.

The writing is fantastic. There's a scene where Jason's teacher sends him to on an errand to retrieve a whistle that's on top of a stack of photocopies of this text. I wish I'd gotten a copy when I was going through adolescence.

"Contrary to popular wisdom, bullies are rarely cowards.

Bullies come in various shapes and sizes. Observe yours. Gather intelligence.

Shunning one hopeless battle is not an act of cowardice.

Hankering for security or popularity makes you weak and vulnerable.

Which is worse? Scorn earnt by informers? Misery earnt by victims?

The brutal may have been moulded by a brutality you cannot exceed. Let guile be your ally.

Respect earnt by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.

Don't laugh at what you don't find funny. Don't support an opinion you don't hold.

The independent befriend the independent.

Adolescence dies in its fourth year. You live to be eighty."

David Mitchell, Black Swan Green.

The British vernacular might stump some American readers, but it's well worth the effort. David Mitchell has become one of my favorite / favourite authors. I think of him like an English version of John Irving. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

This book captures completely the experience of being an outsider. Wonderfully written. Jason Taylor and sister Julia, Mom and Dad's marriage on the rocks. Jason stutters and has voices of Maggot and Unborn Twin speak what he can't. Hangman trips him up over certain words, he never knows which ones until it happens. He's a misfit in school, which in the English system there is no help for. Jason survives against the almost incredible odds of the social system he is faced with. With the problem of bullying so prominent now, this is a timely and instructive book.

So many "English" novels pamper to an American audience- not David Mitchell in Black Swan Green. This journey through eyes and mind of a thirteen year boy in the middle of England explores the small village life and the how he moves from kid to teenager. The story highlights English life not only with idioms and slang only heard in the UK but behavior that is exclusive to the English. Any US reader should be fascinated with his language and ability to create a world not seen by many of us. Dissimilar than American novels on coming of age (Cather in Rye/ Ferris Beach/ This Boys Life) in that Mitchell provides details on Jason's English way of life at his age are remarkably and significantly different that what an American boy or girl would observe. We may remember our youth as a boring time...not so for this village and its varied characters that move Jason through age 13 in a month by month awakening. I'd say it's an epic, but nobody says epic any more in the village of Black Swan Green, not in Jason's world anyway...

An accurate picture of early 1980s culture in Worcestershire that uses a typical family to illustrate the challenges of growing up at school and at home. Not a storyline with many plot turns and some characters feel forced and irrelevant but still a good read. Recommended if you are interested in the place or time or culture.

A fascinating voice drives a story of innocence damaged but not lost. I have never been to England, so some of the vernacular escaped me, but it didn't matter. If you love literature (as opposed to light reading) you will fall for the characters in this book.

Mitchell is one of my favorite authors and this book was powerful. Maybe part of it is- my age was nearly the same as the main character in the 80s and made it even more poignant. Also, as I read it slowly hooked me into the story and I was totally engaged throughout.

I loved it. Mitchell beautifully captures the world of 13-year-old Jason Taylor. And though it takes place in Thatcher's England the book brings back one's own experiences of that age in life. Without overly dramatizing events Mitchell keeps the experiences real and universal. I connected with Jason's struggle to avoid revealing secrets such as his poetry writing and stammer-secrets that if found out would be ridiculed by classmate bullies who enjoy making life hell for the weak and different.

As befits a character who secretly writes poetry under the name Elliot Bolivar, the narrative is filled with poetic detail. Each chapter in book tells a self-contained portion of Jason's story; among my Favorites is "Solarium" where Jason meets the imposing Madame Crommelnck, an older Belgian woman who, taken with his poetry attempts to teach him the value of truth in art. I also loved the portion of "Disco" that dealt with Jason's first kiss.

From the opening in his Dad's office to it's beautiful last line Black Swan Green is a work of art and I will definitely seek out Mitchell's other books.

I've heard many good things about David Mitchell (but have not yet read his others), and was provoked by the blurb proclaiming Black Swan Green as a British Catcher in the Rye. Ultimately, however, I found this book to be fine but uninspiring. The narrator mostly came off as being dim, rather than just being 13, but I don't think that was the point. In fact, I could not get The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time out of my head as I was reading Black Swan Green--though the former is narrated by an autistic. So I take that as a bad sign. I did gradually become interested in Black Swan Green as it progressed, and very much enjoyed the chapter with the eccentric Belgian poetry fan (who, I understand, appears in other Mitchell books). There are some clever, intriguing, and funny moments in the book. I also enjoy the bildungsroman genre, and did appreciate the challenges of conveying a coming of age. But this particular book also contains an overwhelming number of 80's Brit colloquialisms and a general sense of exaggeration - or at least excessive artistic license - regarding the life of a 13 year old.

Conservatively speaking, this is a likely classic. Jason Taylor is one of the most memorable narrators in recent fiction. I'm really just stunned at how good this novel is, and how bad most contemporary fiction seems when compared with Mitchell's work. It's literate, accessible, compelling, funny, sad, and wise. Yes, there are a few clunky lines. They're intentional. After all, the narrator is a 13-year-old poet. I love this book. It's in the same category as Great Expectations, or le Grande Meaulnes (which is referred to in Black Swan Green). I'm being hyperbolic, but it's been a while since a new novel had me this excited.

Beautifully written account of a 13-year-old boy's struggles in the face of the callous, self-absorbed, and even brutal people who surround him. The sort of book you regret finishing and that will remain in your thoughts and your heart for some time after.

This was the second book by Mitchell I've read, and while not a lot of stories out there can compete with the sheer excitement of "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet", Black Swan Green comes pretty close. Even as someone who experienced their pre-teen days 20 years later and in an entirely different country (U.S) as protagonist and narrator, Jason Taylor, I found his woes and worries to be very reflective of my own. David Mitchell somehow manages to capture the voice of this character and preserve the literary integrity that makes his work so enjoyable. A captivating story by one of my favorite contemporary writers!

This is an outstanding book in many ways. Character, Plot, Setting, Language, etc.
I am not going to be a "prat" and give any on it away but if your are a reader I recommend it.

A Confederacy of Dunces

I cannot remember when I have revised my opinion so drastically as I kept reading a book. In the beginning, I thought I might have made a mistake. The book was as well-written as I had expected, but it was giving a vivid portrayal of a 13 year old boy. Though I once was one, I had no great desire to relive that. But Mitchell develops his characters as one develops friendships in life. Gradually one discovers more depth, things stated with certainty turn out to be wrong, there are surprises, people say one thing but mean another. At the end I felt like I had gotten to know a sweet, poetic kid who was figuring life out in interesting ways. And all this at the hands of a literary master.

The US Audible version of this book is horrid, no other way to describe it. The reader is an American who attempts to read with a British accent and absolutely kills Mitchell's writing. I actually cannot believe it made it through production. Audible have refunded me and I have bought the Kindle version.

Fans of David Mitchell's acclaimed and popular Cloud Atlas might be disappointed to find that Black Swan Green features none of the previous book's ambitious temporal leaps and interwoven story lines. Me? Those devices put me off when I read the book, and so I was eager to dive into Black Swan Green in hopes of enjoying Mr. Mitchell's ample talents without the distractions.

I was at least partially correct: Black Swan Green is a very traditional, chronological, first-person, semi-autobiographical, and not quite predictable coming of age story. Unfortunately, it's also rather ordinary.

The story is about an unusually insightful and thoughtful 13-year-old called Jason Taylor. It is set entirely in 1982 (starting in January, when the boy inadvertently smashes his grandmother's irreplaceable Omega watch, and ending after Christmas), all in the sleepy village of Black Swan Green in Worcestershire in the U.K. We meet Jason's family, neighborhood chums, a stammering nemesis from school, and we get insight into the life in this anonymous central English hamlet.

There's nothing wrong with the story; it's just that there isn't much that is right about it either.

Three hundred pages after starting the book, I am no less convinced that the 36-year-old Mr. Mitchell is a talented and promising writer. I applaud him for experimenting with new styles, and I hope he will continue to do so until he finds the one that works best with his abilities. I hope he'll cross this style off the list, though, because it isn't what I think he is looking for.

'Black swan green' has been descirbed as a simple touching tale i.e. it's more traditional in comparison with the brilliant cloud atlas, something the average might be more comfortable with. However if you look more closely the book is still very different for the genre.For a start it's divided into 13 tales which interlock rather than just being a story with one overarching narrative. Also the tales themselves have often slightly different feels .For example, the first story in the novel 'January man' feels more gothic horror or dickensian ghost story, as opposed to 'solarium' which uses a character from the robert frobisher section of cloud atlas and feels more early twentieth century french . However at no time does the reader feel that the tales don't belong together , something that requires quite considerable literary skill (which mitchell clearly possesses in spades)The other interesting thing is the age of the boy ..he's 13 .Usually these kind of tales feature boys of 16- 18 . By choosing this odd age, mitchell is able to investigate the twlight world of childhood which is beginning to be infused with sexual feeling. Consequently the novel feels fresher than a coming of age novel for example.

Anyway its genius, genuinely moving at points with real heart and something i can imagine readers of all ages loving .Superb.

I have heard some fans of David Mitchell saying that this book is a step backward for the author. I disagree. Black Swan Green is a breath of fresh air. This book shows that David Mitchell doesn't need the twists and turns, parallel narratives, and complex themes of Cloud Atlas or GhostWritten to turn out a fantastic read.

A simply written, wonderful story. This book is touching and sad, incredibly funny, and packed full of truths about being a 13 year old boy. In Jason Taylor, Mitchell has created a character that is easy to relate to and easier to pull for.

I highly recommend all of David Mitchell's books.

Other Favorite Authors: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Vladimir Nabokov, T.C. Boyle, John Steinbeck

Since so many others have reviewed this book already, I'll keep it short and simple. First off, I wish that the store would give us more flexibility in rating books. I'd like to give Black Swan Green at least 3.5 stars, but alas, am stuck choosing between 3 and 4. I've seen this complaint voiced by so many other reviewers. Is anyone at the store listening?

Next, let me say that I am in awe of David Mitchell's command of the English language, in particular his ability to make up new words, and use old words in thoroughly imaginative ways. His uniquely rich, onomatopoetic descriptions and startlingly vivid imagery, to be found on virtually every page of the book, puts him in a class by himself among contemporary English-speaking novelists. He is truly a 21st-century Dylan Thomas.

That said, I don't believe Black Swan Green is a great book, nor one that I would recommend to many people. The main problem I have with it is this: As likable a lad as Jason Taylor is, and as compelling his story, I don't think he's the right person to narrate the book---at least not in the language or vocabulary with which Mitchell endows him. On the one hand, Jason is always using words like "ace," which no doubt was in vogue with English kids in the 1980's. That part is believable. On the other hand, he consistently comes out with alliterative, exquisitely crafted metaphors, which a 13-year-old could not possibly conjure up. Nor could a 13-year-old possess the wisdom that Jason imparts to the reader throughout the book, especially towards the end.

An author with the talents of a David Mitchell needs to ask himself what's most important, when beginning an autobiographical novel narrated by an adolescent protagonist. Is it to showcase the full range of his abilities as a writer, at whatever cost to the plausibility of the narrator? Or is it to tell a story that the reader can accept as truth, from beginning to end? If it's the latter, then he needs to scale the narration down to a believable level, so that we, the readers, are not left shaking our heads, asking ourselves how in the world a pubescent country boy could possibly own the vocabulary, and possess the worldly wisdom, of a Jason Taylor.

Unlike in his previous complex novels with shifting narrators and settings, Mitchell quickly establishes the voice of 13 year old Jason Taylor who narrates thirteen monthly accounts of his life in a small English village in 1982. Though talented and energetic, Jason struggles with a crippling stammering problem, swarms of bullies and his parents' deteriorating marriage. This simple but absorbing book exceeded my high expectations and compares favorably with Mitchell's three other excellent novels.

It is a well crafted coming of age novel of a 13 year old boy who stutters. He wants to fit in with his classmates but is instead the victim of bullying. The novel covers a year of his life and how he deals with this problem.

The novel covers one year in the life of thirteen year old Jason Taylor during the 1980s in Worcestershire, England. I'm not really sure why the author chose to create a character that can resemble almost any child at that time and place. Even though Jason was a good kid, maturing month by month into a teenager, his world seemed no different than anyone else's. Of course there was the two month long war in the Falkland Islands where the casualties touched close to Jason's home but that seemed to come to an abrupt end when the chapter ended and Jason's story continued without much mention of that horrible ordeal. Black Swan Green was a challenging read and left my feeling a bit drained.

Overall the book didn't seem to give any conclusions to any of the debates that were left in the open. Jason was gifted when it came to writing his beloved poetry but shy in front of his friends who were bigger bullies than he could ever bee. His character shone brighter than others and I felt sorry for him for the way his parents struggled to keep their marriage intact. The humor in the story is balanced with the hardships of growing up but the slang used in order to make the book authentic gave me a headache! I was tired of trying to understand meanings behind the ways the boys bullied each other with words and then felt terrible when physical fighting took over. I can't really say what this story is about. It felt like a film with random chapters, a panorama of Jason's activities; the very many many fights, the hobbies, first kiss and the heartaches but without any real conclusion that would give the reader closure. Perhaps Jason moved on with his life, the next months not written on paper but meant to live and expand in the reader's imagination.

The book is readable and there are some good bits but I have to confess it didn't pull me at all, and I hate to say but felt like a boring snoozer in some parts. I had to force myself to open it and read little at a time; it felt more like sometime I'd have to read for school than for my own enjoyment. I picked it up solemnly on the great reviews but it just didn't speak to me, we're all different and enjoy different things in many ways so it's all okay with me, I don't expect every book I pick up to be fantastic, this was one of those duds in the road that made me stumble over. For those who like to read about adolescence growing up I would recommend "Summer of Night" by Dan Simmons, which was part fantasy and horror but 100% stunning.

- Kasia S.

A look into the bullying society prevalent during 1980s Thatcher England. We experience one year in the life of a 13 year old artistic middle class British boy pressured by bullying peers and an unstable family life. His poetic imagination and sensitivity makes life practically unbearable, and yet he survives. Authentic language,excellent characterizations and a satisfying conclusion. Good read.

There is an expression about not comparing apples to oranges
and it comes to mind when reading David Mitchell. Each of his novels
is so different from his others that comparisons are nearly
impossible. Other authors are like this; Pete Dexter and Lawrence
Cirelli come to mind, but neither achieves the consistent excellence
of Mitchell. Black Swan Green is first rate!

David Mitchell is a great writer. In this work he explores the world of a young adolescent in the UK during the Falkland Islands war.

It is one of the finest portraits of a young man in print.It never fails to holds your interest.

It is a right rivetting read

David Mitchell is one of my favorite contemporary writers, but this is not my favorite book by him. I don't mind the slow pace, it's just that the problems and conflicts the characters face just seem so alien to me.

I really loved this book. I wish I had read it when I was in junior high. It's a great depiction of the dread associated with being unpopular and picked on during the middle school years, as well as the few bright spots. I also liked that the chapters each read like short stories. My only complaints are that the main character is a bit too poetic/philosophical for me to stomach at times, and the abundant 80's pop culture references seemed gratuitous

I had this book checked out from the library on the basis that it's an Alex Award winner, meaning it's an adult book with special appeal for a teen audience. I kept eyeing it up, but finally had to force myself to start it--it just didn't look appealing. How surprised I was to find that it's one of the best, most touching books I've read in years!

Each chapter follows a month in Jason's life as he battles a stammer, the cruel boys at school, parents that are fighting, and the indifference of girls. It's humorous and heart-rending at the same time to watch Jason botch his attempts at a secret society and navigate the often brutal school setting. While some disagree, I think the narrative voice is realistic, believable, and accessible. Highly recommended.

What a wonderful surprise, picked it up when it first came out in the newly published section. Gritty and true to the struggles of adolesence, paired with the limiting perception of youth. Each chapter was a story in itself of the thirteen months that he grows with himself and deals with his disolving family. Beautifuly crafted. You've got to read this.

There were several things I didn't like about the book:
a) It didn't ring true--it felt like an adult trying to write like a 13 year old
b) All the references to the 1980s (music politics etc..) were forced. I get it. It takes place in the 1980s
c) It was dull

Judging by the number of five star reviews, I must have read a different book. I found the vernacular tortuous, the characters jaded, the plot line predictable.... ahh..what else is there to say? I had high expectations for this book and it didn't deliver.

I was so excited about this book that I bought it new at full price on the day it came out. Why not? After all, David Mitchell had astounded me with GHOSTWRITTEN and confounded and delighted me with CLOUD ATLAS. Many readers, myself included, feel that he is the best young writer of fiction working these days. My excitement turned cold and the delight of reading faded to drudgery as I realised that this book just wasn't ever going to effervesce, that the grim realism was not an effect being used to further purpose but was, in fact, just grim realism. No doubt, everyone had a dreary childhood but I've always felt that it's best to adress those issues in therapy and not bore perfect strangers on their own dime. With the exception of a couple of sexual references, this could be the reading assignment for high school sophomores. It is not challenging or provocative. It does not delight. It is, in fact, quite deadly dull.

Because I loved two previous books by David Mitchell, I will continue to watch for his books. The dreariness of BLACK SWAN GREEN will, however, slow my pace to the retail outlet and induce caution with any optimistic anticipation I may feel.

Judging an author's work needs, I believe, to be done in context with how it progresses, and how it differs from his previous work. If this book was David Mitchell's first piece of work, I doubt that it would begin to receive the attention it is getting.

If you Google the reviews of Black Swan Green, you will hardly find a reviewer who doesn't find all sorts of reasons to praise this work. Particularly silly, are those who find the mention of Frobisher (A Cloud Atlas Character), to be some sort of inspitational bridge to something. What I find in the book, is merely another teen age, angst filled, largely boring and repetative, variation of the same stories we've read so many times before.

Yet, if one has read "Cloud Atlas", and stood in awe of this magnificent literary achievment, I wish one of these reviewers would explain how the same man can have written these two books.

During the span of careers, fiction writers often change style and method. As one ages, outlooks and attitudes change. The importance and relevance of ideas also advances. It's a normal evolution which then reflects itself in his work. Here however,we have in the span of about two years, two works which seem difficult to believe that they were written by the same person.

My thought is that Mr. Mitchell was under great pressure, from without or within, to come up with something quickly. What a great relief it would be, to learn that "Black Swan Green" is indeed Mr. Mitchell's work, but written years ago when he was a very young writer, beginning his journey.

We'll just have to wait and see what comes next.

This book was recommended to me because I enjoyed Middlesex, no comparison. I gave up reading "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell in the middle of chapter one. I started reading again, put it down picked it up and finally..........Yes, it was that dull. However, the New York Times has a positive review of "Black Swan Green". I could find only one negative comment in the entire review

I gave up reading "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell in the middle of chapter one. Yes, it was that dull. However, the New York Times has a positive review of "Black Swan Green". I could find only one negative comment in the entire review: "Black Swan Green is uneventful, at least in comparison with Mitchell's other books."

Mitchell's previous book, "Cloud Atlas", was one of my top 5 picks for 2005. I should go back and read his earlier works.

Following from Mitchell's appalling and overrated piece of tripe, "Cloud Atlas", Mitchell does a Holden Caulfield, writing in the "voice" of an angst-ridden adolescent. Except that, unlike JD Salinger, who was a great writer, Mitchell has no talent, and so this book reads as if written by an adult pretending - unsuccessfully - to think and speak in the way he thinks 13 year olds speak. The result is twee, unconvincing and tedious.

I don't know why I have taken such a dislike to David Mitchell's books. (I'm sure in person he is a very nice chap and I have nothing personal against him, I just wish he would stop trying to write books.) There are many bad books out there - thousands - which cause me no concern at all; I have no objection to the terrible Da Vinci Code, the unreadable "thrillers" of Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum, or the unreadable soap operas of Jackie Collins. Perhaps because they never pretend to be something they're not. Unlike the honest writers of mere entertainment, however, Mitchell has pretensions to something more, but without the talent to back up those pretensions. On the evidence of his books, Mitchell appears to be a pseud of the highest order, and the fact that his superficial, gimicky, tricksy, wanky stories have hoodwinked so many gullible critics and readers depresses me far more than Harry Potter or Dan Brown ever could.

There are so many good writers out there - Cynthia Ozick, Walter Abish, Colm Toibin, Kelly Link, Alice Munro, John Banville etc etc - I just don't understand why people waste their time on this nonsense.

No doubt most people will disagree with these comments - I can live with that.

Let me start by saying I’m a huge David Mitchell fanboy. I’m consistently blown away by his raw talent, endless creativity, and sheer ambition as a writer. Having read other titles prior to this one, I knew I’d be predisposed to love Black Swan Green, but it still managed to surprise me. I didn’t grow up in 1980s England, but I had no trouble relating to the protagonist or seeing the world through his eyes. Some have compared Mitchell’s coming-of-age novel to Catcher in the Rye, and I’d dare to say it’s better. I found it more approachable, more universally appealing, and, frankly, more entertaining than the classic American Bildungsroman (I’m an English literature teacher, so I don’t say that lightly).

The novel follows 13-year-old Jason Taylor for one year (13 months to be exact—each chapter is its own episode that contributes to the larger narrative) in the small town of Black Swan Green. Jason worries about his rank in the social hierarchy of his school and how to fit in despite his stammer. He writes poetry but hides it under a pseudonym; he fears failure, exposure, and rejection, yet through a nonstop whirl of adventures must learn to experience and overcome all three. The scenes range from a tense family dinner with visiting relatives to a bizarre afternoon spent hiking down a horseback riding trail, with everything from the nighttime hazing of a secret club to a life-changing occurrence at a town fair in between. Jason accidentally breaks his grandfather’s treasured watch and then seeks to replace it before his parents find out. As the story progresses, Jason himself must break, sometimes forcibly and sometimes by choice, wondering if anything in life can ever be put back to the way it once was.

Mitchell’s achievement comes in how brilliantly he interweaves events of personal and global significance—Jason’s parents’ impending divorce, the growing conflict in the Falklands—without ever breaking the enchantment of the narrative. The slang fits without being distracting, and the reader stays just enough ahead to appreciate the joys and horrors of being a kid without exactly knowing how the story will end. Each of the chapters absorbs in its own way, from the ugly brutality of school bullies to the shy awkwardness of a first kiss, and the final tapestry is a timeless portrait of adolescence. Poignant throughout and a little bizarre in some parts, Black Swan Green is empathetic without sacrificing action and thought-provoking without sacrificing wit. To offer a criticism, I might say that the ending doesn’t pack a mind-blowing punch that will fundamentally change the way readers see the world, but I still found it satisfying. The subtlety provides a different kind of thesis. A 13-year-old doesn’t figure life out in a year, and that’s okay. Mitchell assures that, in the end, everything will be alright—but we’re still on the journey, and it’s not the end yet. I don’t have to be 13 to agree with that. Best suited for advanced teen readers and adults who appreciate literary prose, Black Swan Green is a rich depiction of a season of life and well worth the visit.

This is the 3rd story (novel) I have read by David Mitchell. After a time lapse of unknown length, I will return to this author for another stint of late night reading. I have difficulty putting his books down. Just one more page seems always to turn into 3 o'clock in the morning.

I have enjoyed reading several other books by this author. Cloud atlas is my favorite but every novel is beautiful. Growth novels about teenagers is not a genre, if this book is in that genre, that interests me. Maybe I was spooked by the obligatory catcher in the rye. This book was fun laugh out loud funny, thrilling , insightful and profound.
A great read.
I recommend it.