A Spot of Bother

This lovely novel by Mark Haddon is a well-crafted story of a dysfunctional family - each member of which is presented with a quirk that is developed into a beautifully drawn personality. George Hall is the father, slowly going insane now that he had retired and he is coming to terms with his own mortality. But George doesn't have a habit about talking about his problems, so he finds it difficult to cope with his fear that he is developing cancer.

Jean, his wife, is finding George's retirement a bit inconvenient as it makes it a little more difficult for her to meet with her lover, one of George's former co-workers who had taken early retirement himself and now pays her attention and compliments that George has never offered her.

Their daughter, Katie, is once divorced with a young son and now living with Ray, who is steady and hard-working but doesn't equal her in intellect and education. Nevertheless, Katie is about to throw her family into chaos by announcing her intention to marry Ray.

And then there is the son, Jaime, who is gay and dating Tony, but who doesn't want to bring Tony along to the wedding, because that would mean that they are more seriously involved than Jamie wants to admit. But Tony understands the message and calls it quits, which leads Jamie to understand that the relationship was more important to him than he wanted to admit.

It's a very British novel, with only brief moments of high drama against the longer passages of thoughts from each character's point of view that creates depth. But the moments of drama are excellent - George discovering Jean's affair, his attempt to excise his "cancer" by cutting it off, and the highlight when he begins a fistfight at the wedding reception.

Wonderful.
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Other books read since the last post -- Home, by Julie Andrews; Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman; Bar Flower by Lea Jacobson.