Black Swan Green

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapters 11-13

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “January Man”

The novel begins with the ringing of the phone in Jason Taylor’s father’s office—a world Jason is forbidden to enter. When Jason answers the phone, he hears breathing on the other end, as well as a baby crying, before the caller hangs up.

Jason’s friend Dean Moran, nicknamed Moron, comes over and invites Jason to play on the frozen lake. Other boys are out there already, popular boys whom Jason idolizes. Though Jason longs to befriend these boys, they ostracize him because of his stammering problem, which Jason has named “Hangman.” It’s Hangman who stops Jason from saying words like “nothing” and “sure.” What’s more, Jason has secretly been publishing poems in the parish magazine under the name Eliot Bolivar. Admitting this would surely get him pegged as “gay,” which would be certain social suicide.

A large group of boys and Dawn Madden (who Jason says might as well be a boy) gather on the ice. Teams are chosen for a game of British Bulldogs. Jason is relieved not to be chosen dead last and plays strategically, making it home. In the second round he’s brought down when three boys from the opposite team tackle him.

Some older boys, including Tom Yew, a sailor in the Royal Navy, arrive on a snowmobile. The game is forgotten in favor of gathering around the older kids, who chat about the best movie they’ve seen and the worst ways to die. Jason, who needs to pee, heads into the woods and ends up following a path he hasn’t taken before. He’s peeing against a fence when an old woman comes out of the house in the woods. Jason refers to her as a “sour aunt.” Her speech does not make sense—she is scolding him for making noise, talking about a brother who’s no longer around, and referencing Ralph Bredon, someone Jason doesn’t know. Uncomfortable, Jason leaves.

Later that day Jason sits down for dinner with his family: his mom, dad, and his 18-year-old sister Julia who calls Jason “Thing.” Jason’s dad is clearly in charge, dispensing judgment and punishment. When pressured, Jason confesses to going into his father’s office, and Julia admits she did the same thing when the phone rang 50 times in a row. A strained silence falls at the table.

In his room Jason reflects on his problems with the boys who ganged up to tackle him that morning, the strange woman in the woods, and the awkward tension between his parents at dinner. He puts on the expensive watch passed down from his grandfather to cheer himself up. He glances out the window and notices a woman in a Jetta driving past their house.

Later that same night Jason goes down to the frozen lake by himself. He runs into another boy, Squelch, who tricks him into petting a dead, frozen kitten before running off. Jason spots another boy skating on the ice, but there’s something strange about him, as if he’s not truly there. When Jason calls to him, the boy’s answers come slowly. It’s a cold, clear night, and Jason skates around the lake, calling to the other boy, who might be a boy of local legend who drowned long ago. Suddenly he falls, hurting his ankle. It’s too cold for him to stay and wait for help, but too far for him to walk home, so Jason hikes into the woods in search of the sour aunt.

Although her house is creepy, with antique furniture and no electric lights, Jason waits for the sour aunt to apply a poultice to his ankle and give him some medicine to drink. He falls asleep and wakes in the cold to find himself alone, trapped in the house, his grandfather’s expensive watch broken (which Jason hides from his father). He climbs the stairs, finds the bedroom where the sour aunt is sleeping, and tries to wake her, but the only response is her ragged breathing.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Hangman”

On a rainy Valentine’s Day, Jason’s mother drops him off at a clinic for speech therapy to help with his stammer. Jason’s stammer began five years earlier, when he couldn’t complete a “hangman” word his teacher had written on the board. He’s learned to work around his stammer, by thinking a sentence ahead and rephrasing his thoughts before they come out of his mouth. However, tomorrow Jason will be required to read out loud in school, and he won’t be able to avoid those tricky “N” and “S” words. Mrs. de Roo, the speech therapist, listens to Jason read and looks at the diary his dad is making him keep, which is basically a list of words that cause Jason to stammer and a record of how he feels when he stammers—“stupid” and “awful” and “bad.”

At home, Jason finds a poem about a boy “who wants to know what it’s like to be dead so much, he’s persuaded himself that a drowned kid’s talking to him” (34). In almost the same thought, he dismisses the incident from Chapter 1—with the old woman and the locked house—as a bad dream.

Jason overhears Julie talking on the phone to someone named Ewan, who appears to be her boyfriend. She scolds him for eavesdropping.

In the morning Jason attempts to tell his mother about the assembly that day, but she sends him out to catch the bus. In dread, Jason arrives at school. A last-minute reprieve comes from his teacher, Mr. Kempsey, who informs Jason that a phone call was made on his behalf—clearly by Mrs. de Roo—asking that Jason be excused from the public assembly because of what reading aloud would do to his self-confidence. Mr. Kempsey himself reads at the assembly. This causes uproar from Gary Drake, one of the popular boys, who demands to know why Jason isn’t reading when it’s his turn. Jason wonders what he ever did to Gary Drake.

The chapter ends with Jason giving the wrong answer in math class, since Hangman won’t let him say the correct answer, 99.

Chapter 3 Summary: “Relatives”

Jason’s Aunt Alice, his mom’s sister, arrives with her family: Uncle Brian and cousins Alex, Hugo, and Nigel. Hugo is two years older than Jason, blessed with good looks and an innate coolness. Jason’s dad and Uncle Brian argue about a variety of topics—traffic, the recession, their jobs—always trying to one-up each other. Michael defends his company, Greenland, which he says is doing well despite the recession.

Over dinner, Uncle Brian brags about his boys’ exploits. Jason prays that no one will mention he won a library poetry prize, but his mother mentions it, and his cousin Alex mocks him for it. Uncle Brian criticizes Julia’s decision not to go to Oxford or Cambridge but to study environmental law in Edinburgh. Julia insults him, putting a stop to the conversation.

When Jason is in the bathroom he overhears a conversation between his mom and Aunt Alice, each apologizing for the behavior of her husband. Aunt Alice asks about the mysterious phone calls, and Jason’s mom mentions that she is only suspicious because of an “incident” her husband was involved in five years earlier. This is the first Jason has heard of the incident, and he listens intently. Alice encourages her sister to get out of the house and go back to work to use her design talents.

Jason invites Hugo for a game of darts, and Nigel tags along. Hugo teases Nigel mercilessly, and Nigel runs away in tears. Jason knows he should speak up on Nigel’s behalf, or somehow make him feel better, but he wants to look cool in front of Hugo, and so he says nothing.

Hugo and Jason begin playing for money, and it looks like Hugo will win when they are interrupted by Aunt Alice, who demands to know why Nigel is crying. Hugo lies, and Jason confirms Hugo’s version of events.

In the games room at Black Swan Green, Hugo plays an incredible game of Asteroids, and the popular boys from the area are suitably impressed. Jason feels that this respect will rub off on him as well. Alone, Jason and Hugo go to Mr. Rhydd’s store, where Hugo steals a pack of cigarettes for himself and some Cadbury’s Crème Eggs, which he stuffs in Jason’s pockets, making Jason a co-conspirator. Outside, Hugo teaches Jason how to smoke and lectures him on being a “Not Today” guy, someone who isn’t brave enough to take action when it’s called for, like their fathers. Jason sees the wisdom in this. The chapter ends with Jason vomiting—the cigarette has made him sick—and Hugo laughing.

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The first chapters of Black Swan Green establish Jason as a protagonist and introduce some of the major issues he faces as the book progresses.

At nearly 13, Jason realizes he is very different from his peers and wants nothing more than to fit in with them. A few obvious facts keep him apart from the other boys. First, he has a humiliating stammer that appeared in his adolescence. Although he works very hard to mask his stammer by rearranging his thoughts to eliminate “N” and “S” words, the boys notice his delayed responses and use his stammer as a weapon against him. Jason is also very sensitive; he writes poetry, hides his grandfather’s broken watch from his father, and vomits after smoking a cigarette. If the other boys noticed these things, he knows they would call him “gay.” Jason is also different in a less obvious way, one he doesn’t realize: His father is an executive with the company Greenland, and his life is more privileged than that of his peers, whose parents’ livelihoods are tied to the land or small village shops.

With the ringing phone in Chapter 1, it is clear that something is going on with Jason’s father and that will later effect Jason’s entire family. There is obvious antagonism between Jason’s parents, his strict, unyielding father and his snarky, dissatisfied mother. When his aunt visits, Jason overhears a conversation about an “incident” five years ago, which is apparently an affair that has supposedly been resolved. Jason’s mother is encouraged to go back to work, and with Julia heading to university in Edinburgh, it is apparent that Jason’s family will be experiencing some radical changes.

A major issue in Jason’s adolescence is the bullying he experiences from his classmates. In these chapters Jason is tackled hard by three boys at once, teased for his stammer, and even mocked by his own cousin. Jason has a firm grasp of the social order: there are the kids referred to reverently by first name, the kids with the cool nicknames, the kids called by their last names, and the kids saddled with disparaging nicknames. Aware of these social divisions, Jason seems to be taking notes on how to be cool, even though he is very different from these boys. This is perhaps best seen when Jason’s cousin Hugo steals from Mr. Rhydd’s shop, and Jason is horrified. Later, after smoking one of those stolen cigarettes, Jason vomits. He’s just not one of the cool guys.

A magical element is also established in the first chapter, when Jason skates with the mysterious boy on the lake, who may be the long-drowned boy of local legend. The sour aunt heals Jason’s twisted ankle with a poultice, and later he awakes to find himself locked in her house. This may indeed be fantasy at work, or it may be the imaginings of a terrified young boy, since in Chapter 2 Jason easily dismisses the woman and his injured ankle as a bad dream.