What can I say about David Mitchell, the man has written some phenomenal books over the last few years, including Cloud Atlas which is undoubtedly a classic of modern meta-fiction.
Black Swan Green is ostensibly a novel about a 13 year old boy growing up (quickly) somewhere in middle England in the mid 1980s. Mitchell captures perfectly the feel of that era, the bad clothes, dodgy fashion, faddy food, and Falklands war. He also captures the feel of being 13 and discovering the world as it really exists, rather than as you initially think it exists. Some reviewers have been underwhelmed by Mitchell's latest book, but I feel that in some ways that is its strength. It is subtle, it doesn't bash you round the head like Cloud Atlas did, or amaze you with narratives like Ghostwritten, but it ensnares you and gets inside your head in a rather insidious manner. It makes you nostalgic, but also melancholic about life, and the innocence of youth.
Read it...
