The Swan

“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

Jim Cohee is a freelance writer, based in San Francisco, who has written for Lonely Planet. The Swan is his first novel.