Black Swan Green - Softcover

Mitchell, David

3.97

41,999 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340839260 ISBN 13: 9780340839263

Publisher: Sceptre, 2006

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Jason Taylor is 13, doomed to be growing up in the most boring family in the deadest village (Black Swan Green) in the dullest county (Worcestershire) in the most tedious nation (England) on earth. And he stammers. 13 chapters, each as self-contained as a short story, follow 13 months in his life as he negotiates the pitfalls of school and home and contends with bullies, girls and family politics. In the distance, the Falklands conflict breaks out; close at hand, the village mobilises against a gypsy camp. And through Jason's eyes, we see what he doesn't know he knows - and watch unfold what will make him wish his life had been as uneventful as he had believed.

Vividly capturing the mood of the times - high unemployment, Cold War politics and the sunset of agrarian England - this is at once a portrait of an era and of an age: the black hole between childhood and teenagerdom.

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Review:

Black Swan Green's 'I love 1982' nostalgia is a glassy, pitch-perfect, mock-innocent surface through which something rotten might appear. (Ali Smith Sunday Telegraph)

David Mitchell is dizzyingly, dazzlingly good . . . Black Swan Green is just gorgeous. (Eithne Farry Daily Mail )

It is the best kind of contemporary fiction. ( TLS )

Hugely touching and enjoyable. (Rachel Cooke, Summer Reads Observer)

A delight to read from beginning to end. ( Sunday Express )

Luminously beautiful. ( The Times )

Book Description:

David Mitchell comes home - to England, 1982, and the cusp of adolescence. A novel that will surprise and delight his many fans

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