Under the sign of the black swan
David Mitchell is a modern classic of British literature, a two-time Booker Prize finalist, and the author of such intellectual bestsellers as "The Bone Clock," "Cloud Atlas" (recently adapted by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski brothers), "The Hungry House," and others. "Under the Sign of the Black Swan" is a novel of growing up, and Mitchell has performed more than confidently in territory traditionally associated with names like Salinger, Bradbury and Harper Lee. So, welcome to the village of Black Swan Meadow (where "there aren't really any swans... It's kind of such a joke, anyway"). Jason Taylor is thirteen years old, and we get to see his life over the course of thirteen months, from one January birthday to the next. He struggles with a stutter, secretly writes poetry, fights with his older sister, and hopes not to sink in the school hierarchy to the level of Dean Duran, nicknamed Dopey. Meanwhile, the Falklands War is raging in the Atlantic, movie theaters are queuing up for Chariots of Fire, and mysterious phone calls keep coming from time to time in his father's office, where "the swivel chair is almost the same as the gun turrets of the Millennium Falcon by the laser batteries..."
Mysterious phone calls are made.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series The Big Novel