A Spot of Bother

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was much loved and one of the bestselling novels of recent years. Winner of seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award, it was published simultaneously in adult and children’s editions and was a bestseller in both. Haddon returns with a novel of such warmth, humour and insight into human frailty that it is destined to equal or even outdo the performance of CURIOUS INCIDENT. A Spot of Bother begins with George...
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Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was much loved and one of the bestselling novels of recent years. Winner of seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award, it was published simultaneously in adult and children’s editions and was a bestseller in both. Haddon returns with a novel of such warmth, humour and insight into human frailty that it is destined to equal or even outdo the performance of CURIOUS INCIDENT. A Spot of Bother begins with George Hall, retired, in his sixties, finding a mark on his hip. He is convinced that he has skin cancer and, with death apparently just round the corner, begins acting oddly. His wife, Jean, is of course concerned, but she has other things on her mind: their daughter Katie announces that she is marrying a man she and George do not wholly approve of, and Jean herself is carrying on an affair with a former work colleague of George’s. The fourth member of the Hall family is Jamie, an estate agent, who is having problems committing himself to his boyfriend Tony. Haddon's lines are simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny, achingly poignant and deeply horrifying. Few authors demonstrate such unashamed love for their damaged characters – a love made meaningful by a penetrating understanding of the human part of human folly. A Spot of Bother is another triumph for Mark Haddon – part family farce, part clear-eyed presentation of mental illness, part novel of manners, but inimitably in his own fantastic, familiar voice.