Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Title Black Swan Green

Author David Mitchell

About the book

In brief

On the cusp of adolescence, Jason Taylor is at an awkward stage: middling in the popularity stakes, terrified that his stammer will be exposed and harbouring a furtive predilection for writing poetry. A small village in the middle of nowhere, or so it seems to Jason, Black Swan Green is surely the dullest of places in which to be a thirteen-year-old. But Jason's year is filled with drama - from tangling with his school's band of 'hardknock' bullies to an introduction to European literature from an eccentric Belgian emigré, and news of the Falklands War in the world outside - all played out against the backdrop of his parents' disintegrating marriage.

In detail

Each of Black Swan Green's thirteen chapters follows a month in Jason's life, from January 1982 when his sprained ankle is bound up by the witchy crone who lives in the House in the Woods one dark frozen night after skating on the village pond, to January 1983 when the crone is revealed as a harmless old woman now the tenant of her son-in-law's granny flat. Following an episodic form rather than a conventionally linear narrative structure, the novel offers a series of vivid snapshots of Jason's life as he passes the milestone of his thirteenth birthday and begins a journey towards a new, hard-earned maturity.

Jason is far from a social pariah but equally far from fitting in to his male classmates' carefully constructed world where difference is derided, weakness cruelly mocked and transgressions of elaborate codes brutally punished. Already suffering the disadvantage of living in a middle-class enclave, Jason knows that discovery of his stammer will result in merciless persecution. He takes evasive action, quickly substituting alternative words when the Hangman threatens to tie his tongue into knots, gaining a rich vocabulary in the process and employing it in writing poetry under the pseudonym Eliot Bolivar for the parish magazine. He's careful not to be seen too often with Dean 'Moron' Moran, although by the end of the year the two are firm friends. Spring is dominated by news of the Falklands War and the death aboard HMS Coventry of Tom Yew, an old boy from Jason's school and the father of Debby Crombie's unborn child. After an unexpected display of cheek, Jason finds himself invited to join the village secret society but despite triumphantly completing the initiation test he is disqualified for acting according to his better nature. Meanwhile his parents are increasingly embroiled in sniping matches and, come the autumn, he finds himself lonelier that he had ever expected when his sister Julia leaves for university. A proposal for a permanent gypsy site has the village up in arms and Jason's encounter with the gypsies leads to another step along the road to maturity. The climax of Jason's year finds him facing down his bullying persecutors and, bathed in glory, experiencing his first kiss at the local disco. The following year begins with Jason saying goodbye to his father and to Black Swan Green as his parents finally part. Jason leaves for Cheltenham with his mother filled with trepidation at being the 'New Kid Whose Parents By The Way Are Getting Divorced', hardly daring to believe Julia's gentle reassurance that 'it'll be all right in the end'.

About the author

David Mitchell was born in Southport in 1969 and grew up in Worcestershire. After graduating from Kent University he lived in Sicily for a year, then moved to Japan where he taught English to technical students in Hiroshima for eight years before returning to England. His first novel, Ghostwritten, won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, number9dream, was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize while his third, Cloud Atlas, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the South Bank Show Literature Prize, and both the Best Literary Fiction and the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year categories in the British Book Awards, as well as being shortlisted for the Man Booker and Commonwealth Writers' prizes. Black Swan Green was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In 2003 David Mitchell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. He lives in Japan with his wife and two children.

For discussion

Black Swan Green is firmly anchored in 1982. How does David Mitchell succeed in evoking the period?
'It's a question - and this might sound nutty - of understanding it, of coming to a working accommodation with it, of respecting it, of not fearing it.' advises Mrs de Roo. – (page 39)
'Ackkk, a wonderful, miserable age. Not a boy, not a teenager. Impatience, but timidity too. Emotional incontinence.' (page 182) How apt did you find Madame Commelynck's description of what it is to be a thirteen-year-old boy? Does it suit Jason? How well does Mitchell capture a thirteen-year-old's voice?
'How about an Outside You, suggested Upside-Down Me, who is your Inside You too?' (page 316) How different is the Jason on the inside from his outward personality? How does he change over the course of the novel?
The boys construct their own world based on an elaborate set of codes. Why is it so hard for Jason to fit into that world? What problems do other boys have to cope with?
What gives Jason the courage to stand up to Neal Brose and to overturn the entrenched code of not 'grassing'? How does it change his life?
How does Jason see the world outside Black Swan Green? What ideas and opinions does he have? Where do they come from?
'His voice was poshish but not as posh as Mum's put-on posh' (page 133). How evident are class divisions in the novel? How important are they?
From early in the novel it is clear to the reader, although not so clear to Jason, that the Taylors' marriage is in trouble. How does Mitchell convey the disintegration of the relationship through Jason's narration?
How important is humour in the novel and how would you describe that humour?
'Authors knit their sentences tight. It's their job.' (page 265). How important are language and style in the novel, particularly in constructing Jason's character? How does the language of Jason's narrative change over the course of thirteen months?
Although the Black Swan Green's structure is considerably less complex than Mitchell's previous work it can almost be read as a set of inter-linked short stories rather than a straightforward linear narrative. How well did you feel this worked?
If you have read Cloud Atlas you will already have encountered Madame Crommelynck and Robert Frobisher. Why do you think Mitchell chose to introduce these particular characters into Black Swan Green?

Other books by David Mitchell

Ghostwritten
number9dream
Cloud Atlas