In Black Swan Green the most prodigiously daring and imaginative writer in Britain brings his formidable gifts very close to home.., he makes the well-worn coming-of-age novel feel vivid and uncomfortable and new.., he's as vital - as shouting and original and central - a voice as the contemporary novel has to offer. He's shown us dazzling power before; here he wins us with vulnerability.

January, 1982. Thirteen-year-otd Jason Taytor - covert stammerer and reluctant poet - anticipates a stultifying year in his backwater English vii[age. But he hasn't reckoned with bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, a threatened gypsy invasion and those mysterious entities known as girls. Charting thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and adolescence, this is a captivating novel, wry, painfut and vibrant with the stuff of life.