#54 - A Spot Of Bother

Mark Haddon's latest novel caught me off guard. Of course, the expectation that it would be good was off the charts, especially after the success of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but if I was pushed, I might admit that I liked A Spot of Bother even better.

It's a more ambitious novel, as it attempts to tell the story of the Hall family, in the weeks leading up to daughter Katie's wedding. The patriarch of the family, George, is having a hard time coming to terms with life in its latter stages as his obsessive fear of dying moves from a quirky hypochondria to a full-blown manic attack. George's wife, Jean, has some troubles of her own, namely, an ex-coworker of her husband's named David. George and Jean have two kids: Katie, the aforementioned daughter (who has a son of her own), and Jamie, who has been involved for the last while with Tony, a man he somewhat refuses to admit he loves. No one likes Katie's fiance, Ray, well, maybe it's more that no one truly understands why they're getting married. The stories of all of these characters are interwoven as the meat of the plot revolves around the will they or won't they nuptials.

That doesn't mean A Spot of Bother is Katie's story, far from it, in fact. The book finds a delicate balance between each of the characters, allowing their own dramas, and their own daily lives, to find a way into the novel. It's a truthful, honest and biting look at family life, from a truly honest point of view. Not unlike Black Swan Green, Haddon has a way of creating characters, while defined somewhat by the plot of the novel, are also clearly drawn and intriguing. A delicate balance of Haddon's brisk prose and impressive characterizations means that A Spot of Bother is funny, intelligent and moving all at the same time. I'd highly recommend it for a Sunday afternoon read, for those hours when the house is clean, the shopping is done, dinner is planned and you have an entire afternoon to yourself to enjoy the simple bliss of wickedly written words on the page.