A novel look at growing up in Thatcher’s Britain

BLACK SWAN GREEN

By David Mitchell

Random House, $23.95, 304 pages

REVIEWED BY KELLY JANE TORRANCE

First novels are often autobiographical. “Write what you know” is common writing-school advice, and many novelists take it to heart.

It’s one reason the coming-of-age novel is so prevalent. Our earliest experiences often affect us deeply — especially the sensitive types — and writers can be a nostalgic breed.

David Mitchell’s first novel was none of these things. “Ghostwritten” consisted of nine interlocking stories, told by nine very different narrators from all over the world. The conceptual novel made Mr. Mitchell one of the most heralded young British writers. His last book, “Cloud Atlas,” helped seal his reputation in the United States. Again featuring interlocking stories, the book travels through the 19th-century South Pacific to 1930s Belgium to Hawaii in a post-apocalyptic future.

Given the author’s reputation as an experimental novelist whose stories span the globe, it’s more than a bit surprising that his fourth book, “Black Swan Green,” is a straight-across narrative of growing up in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Interestingly, it was the first novel Mr. Mitchell started. But he was never satisfied with his work on it, and he published three other books before returning to the one about his childhood.

“Black Swan Green” is clearly autobiographical. Its protagonist, Jason Taylor, is growing up in a Worcester village, the Black Swan Green of the title — just like Mr. Mitchell did. He’s 13 in 1982, the year in which the novel takes place — just like Mr. Mitchell was. And his main problem, the thing he’s most afraid his classmates will discover, is a propensity to stammer — just like Mr. Mitchell had.

In any other hands, this roman a clef could have ended up a disaster; the subject matter is fraught with dangers for a writer. The geeky kid bullied by his more popular peers is something of a cliche. Margaret Thatcher is a rather polarizing figure in Britain, to say the least; it would be tempting to devolve the book into demagoguery. And learning about girls, writers’ apprenticeships and divorce are all topics that have been explored many times before.

But David Mitchell is no ordinary writer. He has an immense talent for voice, bringing the reader deep inside his protagonist’s head. It probably doesn’t hurt that his 13-year-old self shared much in common with Jason Taylor. But that doesn’t diminish Mr. Mitchell’s skills as a communicator. At times, he seems a little too accurate: Jason’s slangy speech, with constructions like “would’ve,” “where’ve,” and even “things’d’ve” can be a bit distracting at first. But the reader soon loses himself in the story.

The book’s 13 chapters each offer one important story from the 13 months from Christmas 1981 to Christmas 1982. It proves to be one of the most important years of Jason’s life, but of course he doesn’t know it at the time. He gets his first kiss, meets his first literary mentor, loses a schoolmate to the Falklands War and witnesses big changes in his parents’ marriage.

There is another trap into which Mr. Mitchell could have fallen. Jason is a sensitive boy, but he can’t be a more perceptive narrator than is believable for a 13-year-old. We realize his parents’ marriage is careening towards a confrontation, but it’s unlikely that he would understand all the subtleties of the situation.

His perceptions are not the less interesting for being immature. Mr. Mitchell had made his alter-ego a budding poet, rather than a novelist; it was a wise choice. Jason is very aware of the world around him, but his literary vocabulary and technique isn’t quite developed yet. The result is some charmingly off-kilter observations.

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