Stammering As Structure

The Santa Cruz Sentinel has an interesting take on the intricately-structured novels of the very talented David Mitchell:

"Not by accident, all of David Mitchell's novels have explored, in one way or another, the literary possibilities behind the physical reality of stammering. 'Some of what the world calls weakness isn't actually weakness,' Mitchell, a longtime stammerer, said. 'These things make you unique and special and should be accommodated as creative informants about the world.' Not only does his new novel Black Swan Green look at stammering's effect on a teenage boy, but in that novel Mitchell uses stammering as a meta-construct for the halting nature of our consciousness."