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Also by Mark Haddon:

Dogs and Monsters, October 2024
Hardcover / e-Book
The Pier Falls, May 2016
e-Book
The Red House, June 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
A Spot of Bother, September 2006
Hardcover
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, May 2004
Trade Size (reprint)

A SPOT OF BOTHER
By: Mark Haddon

The novel is a darkly comic look at a character whose life changes with the prospect of serious illness.

Doubleday
September 2006
On Sale: September 5, 2006
Featuring: Georgie Hall
368 pages
ISBN: 0385520514
EAN: 9780385520515
Hardcover
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Literature and Fiction | Fiction

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not at quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood, or manly bonhomie. He does not understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored.

At 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Her family is not pleased – as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Katie can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband’s ex-colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.

The way these damaged people fall apart – and come together – as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s disturbing yet amusing 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. Here the madness – literally – of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

Media Buzz

All Things Considered - September 9, 2006