A Spot Of Bother

A Spot Of Bother by Mark Haddon 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.