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A Spot of Bother

A Novel

By Mark Haddon

(181)

| Paperback | 9780385662444

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Book Description

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, Continue

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip.

At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it’s skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George’s wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband’s ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie’s observation that Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Jamie himself has his own problems — his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie’s wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart — and come together — as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s hilarious and disturbing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

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. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness — literally — of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.


From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

  • Pleasant incidents

    A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon 390pp, Jonathan Cape, £17.99 Mark Haddon's first novel after the worldwide success of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a real oddity, but not at all in the way you might expect. Curious Incident was ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • It's a mute point

    A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon Jonathan Cape £17.99, pp390 A spot of bother, like a bit of trouble, is usually rather a lot. As phrases, they promise rather more than they want to deliver, but we want to know what the story is. And, indeed, why some ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

19 Reviews

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  • 7 people find this helpful

    I once wondered if it was a mistake buying this book when I was reading the first 100 pages. The pace is slow, the characters are distinct but uninteresting, the plot is unraveling itself rather haphazardly and aimlessly. I almost called it quits.

    Luckily I persisted. The second half of the ... (continue)

    I once wondered if it was a mistake buying this book when I was reading the first 100 pages. The pace is slow, the characters are distinct but uninteresting, the plot is unraveling itself rather haphazardly and aimlessly. I almost called it quits.

    Luckily I persisted. The second half of the book proves much more interesting - not because of sudden twists and turns and actions as there is none, but because it is at that point where one genuinely starts to care about what happens to the characters. It is also at that point where one realizes a lack of drama is not equal to a boring story; it actually makes the story more realistic and the characters more likable. The ending is predictably happy but it is not your typical happily ever afters, rather it is a sense of returning to normal, or a tempest having subsided. You know it's not the end of the problems, but at least the characters have weathered the storm together, as a family.

    Overall, A Spot of Bother may not be as eye-opening as Haddon's previous bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but it is still very well written and will not disappoint anyone. Just try to read past the first 100 pages or so.

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    Holmes said on Oct 14, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • 4 people find this helpful

    I thought this was good, but not completely bowled over by it. It was nice reading the different people and their perspective, but it seemed to lack for me. This is a good book to read on a plane or on holiday, something light and sometimes humorous.

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    Amz310783 said on Jun 18, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • 2 people find this helpful

    Alright

    A perfectly good read. Finished it in three sessions. It is long but easily read. Although I wish he wasn't so obsessed with people vomiting. There was literally someone throwing up on every other page.

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    Marie said on Feb 22, 2010 | Add your feedback

  • Wonderful book, packed with humanity. I found something (or more...) of myself in every character of the story. After a long period of time when, for me, reading was a sort of mountain climbing, I happily run through the 500 pages. I love Mark Haddon. Officially.

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    tam said on Jan 11, 2012 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    I really, really liked this book.
    Funny, sad, real.
    It's the story of an English family...commune but not too much.
    I liked specially the organization of the chapters; each one is focused on one of the family members. Even if it's always the narrator talking, the point of view shift from on particul ... (continue)

    I really, really liked this book.
    Funny, sad, real.
    It's the story of an English family...commune but not too much.
    I liked specially the organization of the chapters; each one is focused on one of the family members. Even if it's always the narrator talking, the point of view shift from on particular character to another.
    Chapters get shorter and shorter when something is happening, giving you an actual feeling of hurry and chaos.

    For the 2nd time Haddon didn't let me down!
    Recommended!!!

    Is this helpful?

    gedeoskij said on Jan 9, 2012 | Add your feedback

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