Black Swan Green

The British Catcher in the Rye?
David Mitchell’s 2004 novel, Cloud Atlas, established its author as perhaps the most ambitious and intriguing young British writer whose name wasn’t Zadie Smith. Here was a novel of stunning intellectual reach, spanning several eras and tones, from a 19th century adventure in the South Seas to a bleak science-fiction tale set after civilization’s destruction. Here was a writer, it seemed, who could do anything.

With Black Swan Green, Mitchell does just one thing, but he does it really, really well. It’s a simpler novel: on its surface, a lightly comic coming-of-age tale, but one that somehow transcends its genre. While some critics have dubbed the book a "British Catcher in the Rye", that assessment isn't quite right: Less devoted to evading the phonies, Black Swan Green’s protagonist Jason is neither as self-absorbed nor as bitter as Holden. Rather, he’s a sort of shy, endearing Everyboy whose narrative voice is positively luminous.

As the book begins, Jason is an awkward, stammering 13-year-old in small-town Worcestershire. He gets in tangles with his parents, who have problems of their own, dodges bullies, develops crushes on girls, watches as the Falklands War leaves its mark on his village. Each of its 13 chapters, which recounts a month in Jason’s life through a specific encounter or conflict, is almost self-contained: Black Swan Green is almost more concept album than novel.

The book is also a hilarious compendium of the Brit slang of its day, as well as cultural detritus from Duran Duran to the Millenium Falcon. Straightforward stuff, then. So why doesn’t the novel become predictable, mawkish or ordinary? Mitchell is less flashy this time out, but so firmly in control and so inventive and the world will seem a little less exciting when Jason has said his peace. This is a writer who can — without being the least bit cheesy — capture the wonder of childhood, the way its modest disappointments and triumphs take on sweeping meanings.