A Spot of Bother

A Novel

By: Mark Haddon

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip.

At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it’s skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George’s wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband’s ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie’s observation that Ray has “strangler’s hands.”

Jamie himself has his own problems—his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie’s wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob. Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart—and come together—as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s hilarious and disturbing 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 best seller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness—literally—of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

©2006 Mark Haddon (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"No bother at all, this comic follow-up to Haddon's blockbuster (and nicely selling book of poems) is great fun." (Publishers Weekly)

Great

This is a wonderful book about a very flawed family and how they deal with each other and various catastrophes in their lives. I love love love the narrator. He is one of my favorites. At times very difficult to listen to, this book is very real. If you read The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night, this book is very differnt but still captures the utter humanity of each of these imperfect characters.

Smart and Funny

Smart, funny, and with a pitch-perfect narrator to boot! I normally listen to audiobooks solely while commuting to and from work. With this one, I had to plug in my Ipod and listen to more at home. The characters are real and 3-dimensional yet the author weaves them into situations which, while totally believable, evolve like a hilarious, off kilter Rube Goldberg machine. I would love to spend more time with this family - at least from a distance.

Anxiety, Wedding, Heartache and Humor

I don't have enough words to express how much I loved this book. This British family is quirky, eccentric, troubled and humorous. The story focuses on anxiety and depression from the sufferers perspective, family tensions, a wedding, homosexuality, adultery all in an amazingly touching yet lighthearted manner. It's hard not to love every character or see yourself or a family member in them. It's a moves relatively quickly not just because the isn't isn't very long, but because you get so immersed in the drama and antics of George Hall and his family.

Perhaps it should be read...

...because I love the narrator and loved this author's previous book in handheld form.

I found listening to this bleakly comic tale of woe and glacial coming to terms arguably too much like being imprisoned and forced to watch a sitcom that you just do not like.

Maybe I'll pick up a paperback of it in the library someday and see if my hunch is right: the book probably does not survive even masterly narration, unless one enjoys squirming in discomfort for hours at a time.

Not on par with “a curious incident…”

I was very disappointed with this one, especially after reading “The curious incident of the dog…”
I kept waiting for something interesting to happen but it never really did.

Disappointment

After "the curious incident", a book that I absolutely loved, I was greatly disappointed.
I found this book to be wanting of a story line.
There really was limited overall message/story that linked everything together

DONT BOTHER WITH THIS SPOT!

I loved Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" about an autistic teen and his family. It was insightful and hard to put down. This book, however, is just a hot mess of too many people doing way too much, much of it immoral or just ridiculous! I couldn't finish it and was very disappointed.

Great Reader, Flat Story

This story lacks the ingenuity and voice of -The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time-. While Simon Vance gives another excellent performance, I never fall in love enough with the characters in order to put up with their whining and over-reactions.

bad narration

I couldn't tell for a long time whether this was TTS (text to speech) or an author. They must have hired this guy for his accent... he's not a great orator. As for the book, I'm half way through, and I still can't figure out why one would or should care about anyone in this novel. It's pretty two-dimensional, and other than the irrational insanity... sounds redundant, but I mean there's no reason for this guy to be insane... of one of the main characters, there's just not a lot going on. Hey, if I want boring reality, I'll open the window.

Not what I expected

What would have made A Spot of Bother better?

I thought this book might be humorous, I found it totally depressing. It's written well and narrated well but everyone's life is complicated and sad. I couldn't stick it out.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Winter Sea

What about Simon Vance’s performance did you like?

He is a very good narrator and manages the different voices seamlessly

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

sadness and disappointment, I read it following Dave Barry's Insane City and the contrast was just to much for me.

Any additional comments?

If you like reveling in others misery, this is the book for you