num_pages: 371
description: 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.
language: English
title: Black Swan Green
titlecomplete: Black Swan Green
characters: Mark Badbury, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, Hugo Lamb, Jason Taylor
genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, British Literature, Young Adult, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook
ratings_count: 41544
places: Worcestershire, England
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Booker Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Costa Book Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: ALA Alex Award
publisher: Sceptre