David Mitchell comes home - to England, 1982, and the cusp of adolescence. Jason Taylor is 13, doomed to be growing up in the most boring family in the deadest village ("Black Swan Green") in the dullest county (Worcestershire) in the most tedious nation (England) on earth. And he stammers. 13 chapters, each as self-contained as a short story, follow 13 months in his life as he negotiates the pitfalls of school and home and contends with bullies, girls and family politics. In the distance, the Falklands conflict breaks out; close at hand, the village mobilises against a gypsy camp. And through Jason's eyes, we see what he doesn't know he knows - and watch unfold what will make him wish his life had been as uneventful as he had believed. Vividly capturing the mood of the times - high unemployment, Cold War politics and the sunset of agrarian England - this is at once a portrait of an era and of an age: the black hole between childhood and teenagerdom.
- ISBN10 0340822791
- ISBN13 9780340822791
- Publish Date 8 May 2006 (first published 11 April 2006)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 November 2007
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Imprint Sceptre
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English