Mark Haddon: A Spot of Bother

I read Haddon's other book, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" and I loved it. This one was different but just as good. I am always impressed with people who can write convincingly from the perspective of the opposite gender and Haddon seems to have an even rarer gift. In his previous work he wrote from the perspective of an autistic young boy. He managed to capture the flat affect and lack of emotion while still tugging at your heart strings. In "A Spot of Bother" he moves seamlessly between man, woman, gay, straight, sane and insane. It's impressive.

The story revolves around a family of mother, father, two grown children and their increasingly complicated lives. I like these types of books that do not try to tell the story of "the year where everyone's life changed" but just tell about a year. Every year in a life brings change and growth and Haddon captures turning points in each character's life without it feeling too contrived.

The main voice in the novel is the father, who although it remains unwritten, probably suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder coupled with some kind of recent panic disorder or dementia. He is convinced he is dying of skin cancer, despite his doctors diagnosis of eczema. Haddon does some excellent stream of consciousness writing with this character and I found it really effective. The story of madness is always best told in the first person. At one point this man decided it makes sense to hack of a piece of his thigh off with a chisel, and as a reader, I found myself completely in agreement with this decision, having been allowed insight into his deteriorating mind.

Along with the father we are privy to the lives of the wife and her attempt to find excitement in an otherwise stagnating life and marriage. The daughter who is preparing for her own wedding and all the questions that accompany such a huge decision and the gay son who realizes, perhaps too late, that he's been in love all along and didn't know it.

"A Spot of Bother" is a story strictly about people. There is little description of anything other than the characters and although it is set in England, the location doesn't feature much as an independent character. Each character is well-developed but not over-developed. You are left with the impression that there is much more awaiting this family by the end of the book, but you are not worried about their fate.