Nocturne in 19

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a children’s book written for the adult mind. All of the horrors and torments of the regular youth, the fighting parents, the schoolyard bullies, the secrets, the shame, are written in such a way that memories of your own childhood will be conjured up, emotions fresh as if it were yesterday. Throughout the story, the main character has insights that are a mix of childhood imagination and innate wisdom, as he goes through the motions of the daily life and all of its consequences. It is a long, hard slog, with an end that while not triumphant is indeed a triumph; a child conquering what life throws at him and coming out of it bruised, but not broken. I extremely resent the fact that this is sometimes called the British Catcher in the Rye. That is one of the severest insults that exist in the literary world.

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