Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell, Sceptre, 2006.

Following the critical acclaim of his last book, Cloud Atlas, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won several other literary prizes, people were awaiting Black Swan Green with great anticipation. Sure enough, it too has made its way onto prize shortlists. But in keeping with the unpredictability we have come to expect from this author, it was quite a different sort of novel from his others.

The narrator is the almost teenage Jason Taylor, and the setting is Worcestershire at the time of the Falklands War. Jason navigates us through his world, the village of Black Swan Green. The general awfulness of puberty is magnified for Jason by his battle with stammering. We spend a year in his company, in a series of linked stories which bring the 80s flooding back.

This is an engaging work, as much reminiscence as fiction, written with warmth. On the whole, it is a lesser work than Mitchell’s others. But if you liked the Adrian Mole books, or Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, this covers similar territory.

- John