Black Swan Green
From the Random House website:
From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982.
David Mitchell himself says:
It’s about 13 months in the life of a 13 year old boy. It’s set in a small, narrow village in South Worcestershire that the narrative only leaves twice. It’s 1982, in the cold war, and the year of the Falklands war.
Source: The Agony Column Book Reviews.
Knowing that Mitchell is from my neck of the woods, and knowing that neck just as well as he, I’d suggest that Black Swan Green is the name of the village in which Jason Taylor lives, and that the real-life precedent for that village is Hanley Swan. I’m going to have to wait until April to find out if I’m right.
Does the suggestion of waiting till april imply that you are coming home in april? Or are you just pacing the fun?
R xxx
If only I were coming home in April! No, April is when the book is released for public consumption. Of course, it’ll have to be posted here, so it’ll be mid April, maybe early May before I can read it.
If the USA gets it half a month before Britain (USA:mid-April; UK:6thMay), then I will NOT be happy. Jan Montefiore is still talking to him loads ( I cheekily asked her last time she was in my bookshop), and his kid’s doing well. As the shop is closing down, we’ll never get to hold him to his promise of an event. Nor get you and Court a specially signed copy…
I’ve read it! Got it a week early, cos my local small bookshop doesn’t mind fudging the embargo date (also as I’d specially ordered it).
It’s lovely. I read it in slightly over a day – it’s so fun and gets you so quickly that I found myself waking up very early in the morning and reaching for it before doing anything else.
It isn’t as gimmicky as Cloud Atlas, and is very emotive too.
Let me know what you guys think. Will you be fighting over the copy when it arrives, you two?