The Red House

The Red House by Mark Haddon An dazzlingly inventive novel
about modern family from the author of The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-time The set-up of Mark
Haddons brilliant new novel is simple: Richard a wealthy
doctor invites his estranged sister Angela and her family
to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English
countryside. Richard has just re-married and inherited a
willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless
husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to
her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and
guilt a staple of family gatherings the world over. But
because of Haddons extraordinary narrative technique the
stories of these eight people are anything but simple.
Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character
The Red House becomes a symphony of long-held grudges
fading dreams and rising hopes tightly-guarded secrets and
illicit desires all adding up to a portrait of
contemporary family life that is bittersweet comic and
deeply felt. As we come to know each character they become
profoundly real to us. We understand them even as we come
to realize they will never fully understand each other
which is the tragicomedy of every family. The Red House is
a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of
family in a profoundly empathetic manner — a novel sure
to entrance the millions of readers of The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.