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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Product details

Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton; 1st edition (11 May 2006)
Language : English
Audio CD : 6 pages
ISBN-10 : 1844561542
ISBN-13 : 978-1844561544
Dimensions : 12.5 x 14.3 x 2.4 cm

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401 ratings

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Review

His wildest ride yet . . . a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill . . . For the third time in a row, Mitchell has excelled himself. - Independent on Sunday on CLOUD ATLAS

A tremendous novel . . . one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable - Philip Hensher, Spectator on CLOUD ATLAS

Resounds to the same marvellous chatter of voices that marked out Ghostwritten, his outstanding first novel - Observer on NUMBER9DREAM

The best first novel I have read in ages . . . the novel beguiles, informs, shocks and captivates. - William Boyd, Daily Telegraph Books of the

Fabulously atmospheric and wryly perceptive . . . a huge new talent - Guardian Books of the Year on GHOSTWRITTEN

Book Description

David Mitchell, author of the Man Booker-shortlisted CLOUD ATLAS, returns with a vintage novel destined to be his most captivating achievement to date

5 star		63%
4 star		23%
3 star		8%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

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Lis Faenza

Deftly crafted, beautifully written.

Reviewed in Australia on 10 May 2016

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David Mitchell never disappoints. I particularly love the way all his works weave together, connected by fragments handled delicately. If you've read The Bone Clocks, you'll love this portrait of teenage of what it was to be young in the UK during the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher, when kids still played outside and discovered what they were made of.

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Angela Carr

A great read

Reviewed in Australia on 4 February 2016

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This was a great story of a young boy growing up in England during the Falklands war. It is a funny and sad story of a young boy who has a stammer and is often ostracised because of his disability. He is a very determined and resilient boy who finds friendships and gets up to lots of mischief and adventures.

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Shannon

Another Mitchell Hit

Reviewed in Australia on 24 May 2016

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Heart pulling description of young teenage issues in the tough love 80's was too close to home to be all amusing. Beautifully written and well worth the read!

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Matthew Haynes

A beautifully written snapshot of a boy growing up

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 May 2017

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Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is a beautiful book that left me thinking ‘damn, I wish I’d written that!’. I could relate a lot to the story of thirteen-year-old Jason who has a stammer, secretly writes poetry, has an older sister and dysfunctional parents. It’s set in the early 1980s which is almost spot on the right time for me to get all the cultural references that Mitchell puts into the story.

There’s an entertaining link to his more famous novel The Cloud Atlas and well-observed and beautifully written passages about growing up in the Eighties, the constant fight to avoid bullies at school and out of school, trying to understand your parents and learning about girls. There’s not all that much of a character arc but it really doesn’t matter – it’s a great snapshot of a point in time and if it is not somewhat autobiographical then its a very convincing character that Mitchell has created in the form of Jason.

The details about how Jason’s stammer ‘behaves’ and how he fights to control it is very interesting and although some of the content is rather painful it’s not without its humour or poetry. A thirteen-year-old’s fight to have some kind of control over his life and form a comfortable identity is very well portrayed.

4 people found this helpful

sashaknits

I enjoyed how evocative of the 80s the book was

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 December 2017

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Quite mixed feelings on this one. I enjoyed how evocative of the 80s the book was. The playful use of language to reflect how Jason is a budding poet and a person with a speech impediment was clever and added to the richness of the overall work. I also found the depiction of fighting parents awkwardly realistic.

On the downside, the story itself was a bit bland for David Mitchell. I know it's an outlier in his usual body of work, but the coming of age narrative just didn't strike a spark for me. The tendency to stop chapters abruptly was also really frustrating by the end!

Still a solid 3 stars, possibly 3.5 due to how much I enjoyed the writing style and for the nod to Robert Frobisher, but if you're looking for the "usual" David Mitchell then you could skip this one and not really be missing out.

2 people found this helpful

Kevin, The Wonder Horse

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2020

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I think my favourite, so far, from Mitchell.

I am only a little bit younger than the main character, whilst I grew up in a city and not a small village, as he did, Mitchells depiction of growing up in the 1980's certainly chimes with my recollections. Bad things happen, good things happen, he grows up. Its just a nice, warm, comforting read.

For me, I have this book in the same mental pigeon hole I have Iain Banks' Crow Road.

Guy

Re-connect with your teenage self

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 December 2014

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More brilliance from Mitchell, he's physically incapable of writing a bad book. The plot summary on it's own wouldn't have inspired me to pick up this book were I not already a fan of the author, but any reservations about reading a novel from the POV of a 13-year-old were quickly assuaged by the free-flowing, poetic prose that felt extremely authentic from the off and scene after scene of highly relatable situations of Jason Taylor's home, school and social life that took me right back to my own formative years.

Characters cross over from a couple of other Mitchell novels too - Eva (daughter of Vyvyan) Ayres from Cloud Atlas is slightly shoehorned in to give a lecture on poetry, and a young Neal Brose, before his stint as a Hong Kong trader in Ghostwritten, is also present as one of Jason's classmates.

By far Mitchell's most accessible novel, my wife also enjoyed it (probably even more than I did) and it's that rare beast of a book that is both literary and could be given as a gift to pretty much anyone safe in the knowledge that they'll find something inside to connect with and enjoy.

4 people found this helpful

Matthew Bakewell

This book is about my childhood!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2016

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If you grew up in the 80s, then this is a thrilling time machine for you to climb into and re-experience how horrible it all was. At first I wasn't sure about the narrative voice - a little contrived - but within 20 pages I was hooked. Like a lot of Mitchell, a little magical realism slipped in and at least one character from another of his books ('the Mitchell universe'!), and it captures growing pains and the internal world of a teen exquisitely. Yes, it's I 'heart' (crossed out) 1980, but some beautiful prose in there, some very real characters and for me, it's always clinched by the ending - Bone Clocks didn't quite do it for me, but this ends brilliantly.

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Black Swan Green Audio CD – Unabridged, 11 May 2006

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