A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon

A Spot of Bother

By Mark Haddon

  • Release Date: 2007-08-14
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4
4
From 46 Ratings
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Description

A Spot of Bother is Mark Haddon’s unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. At sixty-one, George Hall is settling down to a comfortable retirement. When his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting married to the deeply inappropriate Ray, the Hall family is thrown into a tizzy. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. As parents and children fall apart and come together, Haddon paints a disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

Reviews

  • Mediocre

    3
    By Den2013_wn
    Fun to read if you've got nothing else to do. And just this book on your hands. I had to read it because I was analysing insanity as part of my PhD degree. It is very contrived, and sometimes it gets really boring. Not original at all, like his prized Curious Incident of the Dog. It seems more like a description of one of the stupidest American comedies. But you know, each to their own.

  • More than just a spot

    4
    By Go char go
    Darkly humorous, this is a cleverly written, multi-generational family story told from the various members' perspectives. None of them really see nor hear one another, and their silo'd lives start to fall apart. They need one another to become whole again. Mr Haddon is a terrific, contemporary British novelist with an amazing ability to convey empathy for the most challenging characters. A Spot of Bother recalls wacky comedies such as A Death at a Funeral, emotionally charged family dysfunction as in About A Boy, and classic stiff-upper-lip forbearance (as in any Masterpiece theatre series).

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