A spot of bother

No cover

Mark Haddon: A spot of bother (2006, Doubleday)

354 pages

English language

Published Aug. 19, 2006 by Doubleday.

ISBN:
978-0-385-52051-5
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (1 review)

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 …

12 editions

Subjects

  • Middle-aged men -- Fiction
  • Mortality -- Fiction
  • Psychological fiction