Straining to give voice to adolescence

{ "b" : "Black Swan Green," , "cite" : "by David Mitchell, Sceptre, €15."}

If David Mitchell were a less audacious, less ambitious writer, this might have been his first rather than his fourth novel. Compared to Cloud Atlas, his last book, Black Swan Green may sound a little tame. Set in South Worcestershire during 1982, it’s more sedentary and more structurally conventional than the dazzling Russian Doll of six interlocking novellas that ...