Black Swan Green

A muscular, contemplative book about childhood on the verge of maturity and the elderly on the verge of the new is released by award-winning author David Mitchell.

In a waning Cold War England in 1982, Black Swan Green follows a single year in what thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor considers to be the sleepiest hamlet in muddiest Worcestershire. However, the thirteen chapters—each a standalone short story—create a universe of fine observation that is everything from drowsy. A world of boys playing games on a frozen lake, of "nightcreeping" through strangers' summer backyards, of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human cost, of the cruel, lustful Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of an elderly bohemian emigrant, Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason's quest to replace his grandfather's irreplaceable shattered watch before the crime is discovered, of Margaret Thatcher's recession, of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they cause, and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.

The most nuanced and successful work of David Mitchell to date, Black Swan Green is pointed, humorous, insightful, off-kilter, elegiac, and painted with the substance of life.