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 "Bone Clocks," "Cloud Atlas" (adapted by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski brothers), "The Bone Clocks," and others. "Under... the Sign of the Black Swan" is a coming-of-age novel, and Mitchell has stepped confidently into a territory traditionally associated with names like Salinger, Bradbury, and Harper Lee. So, welcome to the village of Black Swan Glade (where "there are actually no swans... It's basically a joke"). Jason Taylor is thirteen years old, and we will see his life over the course of thirteen months, from one January birthday to another. He struggles with a stutter, secretly writes poetry, bickers with his older sister, and hopes not to sink in the school hierarchy to the level of Dean Durand, nicknamed Fool. Meanwhile, the Falklands War is raging in the Atlantic, queues are forming in cinemas for "Chariots of Fire," and in his father's office, where "the revolving chair is almost like those in the gun turrets of the Millennium Falcon at laser batteries," mysterious phone calls are heard from time to time... "Under the Sign of the Black Swan" is the perfect snapshot of time and place, not a single false note" (Telegraph).