Chapter 1 starts off with a rule, which sounds more like a command, "Do not set foot in my office." Right away I sense a dark, foreboding nature to the book. This rule is strictly enforced by the protagonist's, Jason Taylor, dad. So, I am lead to believe 3 things. 1 Jason's dad is very neat and doesn't want his children messing up his office. 2 Jason's dad is hiding something. 3 Jason is a disobedient kid. Although this opening chapter doesn't necessarily unravel my suspicions, it does subtly validate my #2 and #3. First, when Jason hears the phone ring in his dad's office and after 50 rings he decides to enter the forbidden room and answer the phone. Second, when the Taylor family are having dinner and Jason's dad asks if anyone has been in his office. Jason, with the help of his sister, Julia (who also had the same experience), explains that he disobeyed the rule because the phone would not stop ringing. Then he claims that when he picked up the phone, he could tell someone was on the other end, but didn't want to say anything, and that there was a baby crying in the background. Jason's mother's cold and silent reaction to this suggests she knows the meaning behind these mysterious phone calls.
I don't know how to feel about Jason's mother yet. For now she seems a bit insignificant, sort of like a prop in the background. If Jason's dad is supposedly having a secret affair, I'm not sure I feel sorry for her just yet because she's not as well developed a character as Jason's dad is, or even Julia is. From the dinner table scene alone, I know that Jason doesn't really have a close relationship with his older sister. Perhaps it's because of the gap in their ages. Or maybe they can't relate to one another because they're members of the opposite sex. Needless to say, Julia calling her brother, "Thing" followed by a nasty comment or two doesn't really evoke the idea affection to me. But their relationship is intriguing and even humorous. In my family my siblings and I are extremely close, so I wonder about why Jason and Julia don't get along well. Is Julia just a mean, older sister, who likes to bully her brother, or does Jason provoke her?
Jason is undoubtedly the most complex and interesting character so far. I'm curious about his poems that get published in the Black Swan Green Parish Magazine. Nice reference to the title! But mostly, I like reading about him and his relationship with the rest of the characters, starting with his friend, Dean aka Moron, then with his schoolmates and the strange hierarchy they have that spring from their names and ultimately with Sour Aunt. I have a lot of questions about Jason. I'm perplexed about Hangman, Maggot and Unborn Twin. Hangman seems to be the term is he says when referring to his stammer, which actually reminded me of the author W. Somerset Maugham. He was an English writer, whose first language was French, so as a young student he developed a stammer. I wonder about how Jason developed his stammer. And why he names it Hangman. Also, I'm eager to find out more about Maggot and Unborn Twin. And I'm still trying to rack my brain over the last few scenes in chapter 1, where Jason has a strange encounter with a boy he assumes is the butcher's son, Ralph Bredon. Was this imaginary or a hallucination? And the part with Sour Aunt dying is so eery yet compelling, but also such a cliff hanger!
I have to say I'm enjoying the book so far. I like that I'm at the edge of my seat, trying to decipher all these mysterious events. I can't wait to read what happens next!
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