A vivid look at adolescence

BLACK SWAN GREEN, by David Mitchell, Random House, 294 pages, $13.95

Using a 13-year-old English boy's vocabulary, Jason Taylor, the narrator of "Black Swan Green," tells the insightful, crude and oftentimes embarrassing story of his adolescence.

Author David Mitchell's main character is witty and intelligent, though painfully ashamed of a speech impediment he views as socially debilitating, and which he hides from his peers.

The book is set in 1982, during the Falklands War, and follows Jason through one year of his youth. He rises and falls in the social hierarchy of pubescent boys in his village town in Worcestershire, England, and forms a severe crush on a bully's girlfriend.

Using descriptive phrases, Mitchell successfully takes the reader back to the insecure and awkward time when young people struggle to fit in. By making such observations as "Good moods're as fragile as eggs. ... Bad moods're as fragile as bricks," Mitchell convincingly creates an observant and poetic, struggling character in Jason.

An unfamiliar English dialect makes discerning the meaning of some passages difficult for the American reader. Mitchell explains the premise for American games such as air hockey, "Operation" and "The Game of Life" but provides no explanation for such British terms as "Scabby Queen." The unfamiliar school set-up, with different "forms," and tests called CSEs, may also be foreign, though Jason's fears and strengths are still coherently conveyed.

Mitchell helps the reader recall the importance placed on being accepted by schoolyard leaders. He creatively summarizes the boyhood popularity hierarchy by identifying the use of a naming system. "Kids who're really popular get called by their first names. ... Kid's who're a bit popular like Gilbert Swinyard have sort of respectful nicknames like 'Yardy.' Next down are kids like me who call each other by our surnames. ... It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army."

Taylor's relationship with his older sister evolves over the course of the year as his parents argue more frequently and he struggles with stammering. The terror he feels at the thought of his speech impediment being discovered by his peers is palpable, as he worries for days about having to read aloud a passage from a book in front of his class.

Although he is occasionally accepted by his peers, he is taunted throughout the novel -- and at times viciously tormented. Eventually, Jason articulately challenges those who ruthlessly harass him and delivers a couple of deliberate, poignant insults to his intimidators.

E-mail: mfarmer@desnews.com

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