Break Away Books

A Novel

By: Jim Cohee

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Paperback | 19 August 2011

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Ten-year-old Aaron Cooper has witnessed the death of his younger sister, Pookie, and the trauma has left him unwilling to speak. Aaron copes with life's challenges by disappearing into his own imagination, envisioning being captain of the Kon Tiki, driving his sled in the snowy Klondike, and tiger hunting in India. He is guarded by secret friends like deposed Hungarian Count Blurtz Shemshoian and Blurtz's wonder dog, Nipper, who protect him from the creature from the Black Lagoon-who hides in Aaron's closet at night. The tales he constructs for himself, the real life stories he is witness to, and his mother's desperate efforts to bring her son back from the brink, all come to a head at an emotional family dinner. Set in Indianapolis in 1957, The Swan is a fictional memoir about enduring love and the weighty nature of mortality.

Industry Reviews

"Funny, poignant and as endearing as its central character, The Swan is a wholly original tribute to childhood resilience." San Jose Mercury News "It's all there: eloquence, comedy, a childhood effectively captured, seriousness, an eccentric intelligence. The Swan delights." William O'Rourke, On Having a Heart Attack: A Medical Memoir "The brilliant stutter-stepping and jump-cutting expertly mimic the mind of a ten-year-old, and the basic irony is stunning -- that a verbally pyrotechnic book should be uttered by a mute boy." -- Michael Martone, Editor of Not Normal, Illinois: Peculiar Fictions from the Flyover (IUP 2009) "Nothing short of dazzling." -- Linda Niemann, author of Railroad Noir (IUP 2010) "Lively, entertaining, funny, and often moving." -- Scott Russell Sanders, A Conservationist Manifesto (IUP, 2010) "The Swan is a story of childhood and a family's tenuous hold on everything that once seemed solid to them. Jim Cohee's lyrical and expertly crafted prose weaves a tale that is enchanting, hilarious, heartbreaking, and uplifting. A young boy's fantasies and his resistance to the circumstances of his family weaves this story of loss and the transcendence of the human spirit. It reminds us how noble and resilient we can be." Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever and River of Heaven

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