Black Swan Green (2006)

I fell over this by happenstance in a bargain basement bookstore and picked it up in passing for my husband as a nostalgic read (though more in our daughter's generation than ours) and because it had some local interest. I knew nothing about the author at the time. I flicked through the first few pages when I got home to see what I'd ended up with, and got hooked in by the observational detail, a strange charm and a good tale... Poor husband had to wait in the end but also thoroughly enjoyed it. I then bought Cloud Atlas but completely lost patience with that! ( )

Jason Taylor is just thirteen in the Worcestershire village of Black Swan Green, the back end of beyond where there aren't even any white swans, never mind black. And as a thirteen year old boy, nothing is more important to Jason that ensuring that his place in the pecking order of the local boys who attend his comprehensive school doesn't deteriorate from its already precarious position. As the son of 'townies', and well-off townies at that, his position is already vulnerable, and as he fails to control his stammer it becomes doubly so. And as Jason focuses on his own problems, he fails to notice that his parents' own marriage is going through struggles of its own.

Black Swan Green is the story of Jason's life through 1982 and into 1983, told in a series of episodes which at first can seen disjointed and unfinished, but which eventually build into a satisfying whole. Some of these episodes are particularly successful: the patriotic fervour in Britain during the Falklands war is captured wonderfully as Jason's initial excitement turns to a realisation of the realities of war when a popular local boy is killed on HMS Coventry. And the interactions of the boys as they try to find their feet in the more complicated world of a teenager are conveyed perfectly. Other episodes work less well, in particular those which seem rather less realist in nature. Jason's relationship with the eccentric Belgian Madame Crommelynk, who encourages him in his writing of poetry, does not ring true, neither does an episode where Jason finds himself locked into a mysterious house in the woods.

I found the evocation of the 1980's very convincing, although I'm not sure how much of this was due to a certain sense of nostalgia on my part to a time when, although I wasn't thirteen, I wasn't much older than a teenager. And the sense of place seems right too: my sister lived in that area for more than twenty years, and the depiction of villages where you were still considered an outsider even though you'd lived there for half a lifetime rang true.

In the end I've rated this as a 3 and a half star read, although it could easily have been a four star read if it had just been a little more consistent. Overall, a book which works well when it focuses on the realities of bring a thirteen year old boy growing up in the 1980's, but less well when less realistic elements intrude.

reading for the fourth autumn in a row...it's now officially a tradition. ( )

My most re-read book, and always in October. ( )

David Mitchell has no idea of how an American sounds like.
Annoying, the way eccentric characters are twirled into the story and twirled right back out.

I guess those are my only two reservations about this book, a coming-of-age story that feels spot on. Books where I can see myself, that vibrate with shared experience or shadows of familiarity, those are the ones that can slice to the deepest quick. This isn't one of them, since I wasn't a smart boy who was 13 in 1982 in a small village in England with a stutter who had to navigate an intricate tangle of kid politics. But while my quick went uncut, this came as close as anything could. I loved the lessons learned, though it was a little heavy-handed in making sure we got it by spelling it out for the reader at the end of many of these little capsules in time, strung together to make up an eventful year in the lift of Jason Taylor. And while his immediate world around him went belly-up, I appreciated the happy ending in the form of gargantuan personal development. Also, funny bits, triumphant bits, soft in the heart bits. ( )