We follow Jason Taylor aka Eliot Bolivar. A schism of boyhood identity in every respect, our 13-year-old protagonist chronicles about a year in a small town called Black Swan Green.

He has one sort of friend, a kid lower on the pecking order of smol patriarchy, and a not insignificant speech impediment that often ostracizes him. His parents are having problems, his big sister, with whom he has a tumultuous relationship that mostly leans to allyship, and he’s also nested a secret in his bone clock of a body: He’s actually also a published poet.

Sure, it’s just local and a talent that needs to be honed, but it’s also the perfect manifestation of Taylor’s coming-of-age tale.

Jason has a few alter egos: said poet, a name for the toxic and dark thoughts we all have from time to time, Maggot, and we also have the hangman, who represents a kind of psychological embodiment of Jayson’s stutter. When he tries to navigate a sentence and it becomes ‘mashed down’, a word perceived as not allowed by this figure, it is as though the hangman takes over Jayson’s body.

All communication, then, because a fight for agency. Then, because, kids are such shits, the bullying follows when these incidents are public.

There are multiple arcs and themes inbuilt here. Most of them are pretty mundane but handled quite well. Jayson piques from these seemingly small tribulations, which, I’m sure, at the time as we can all remember, feel as though they are the largest obstacles of all life—but which he does discern the inner workings of the world, and lays them out brilliantly. Here we see the flourishes of Eliot Bolivar, I think. The person Jayson may grow into, if nurtured.

But Jayson’s problems often come from the aforementioned identities he’s combating and exploring. Again, some problems seem trivial. But we know in the Mitchell verse such small things that shape the morality and character of an individual are almost quantifiable. What is right and not right reoccur over and over but the side of good absolutely needs all those it can muster.

What’s more is we meet Hugo Lamb from Mitchell’s later book The Bone Clocks. Even that short chapter with Lamb is the foreshadowing for his beginnings. All of the essential ingredients of his problems in the future and his ethics are right there, in their own way, warring with Jayson. Lamb representing amoralism and the cult of cool, Jayson, unbeknownst to anyone, the “loser” colliding with moments that could easily shape him and send him Lambs way.

For those that read Cloud Atlas there is also a lovely coda to Frobisher’s storyline. The composer with which he boards has a daughter, if you recall, and she appears herein as well. I relished that very much, as Frobisher is my favourite character from the book.

So, yes, it’s a satisfying, if quite different read. It’s not sprawling or meta or from multiple perspectives. But, as usual, the perspective is, in my opinion, extremely well crafted. A distinct and excellent voice, filled with some opaque Britishisms. The voice of a young boy, a child, sometimes, a poet and one day a man, is all there. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and it does exactly what it sets out to do in a quiet and understated, effective way.