Yes, the bloke who wrote "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".
Being honest I think this one is more entertaining than the first. (Have also got his poetry book, they are "different", I like them, but I like poetry in it's various forms.)
This story revolves around an "ideal" family of the 70s/80s two kids, nice house, etc. The story is narrated by an omniscient narrator telling each character's view in separate chapters. The father has recently retired and has a minor medical crisis, which he blows out of all proportion in his head, as he's not someone who can discuss what is going on in his life. The mother is having what she thinks is a discrete affair, the daughter is getting married, for a second time, to a man her parents aren't too sure of, and the son is a homosexual, who is trying to keep up heterosexual appearances whilst at home, for his parents sake. The characters are so well developed, and there isn't one you take a dislike to, despite their antics. The chapters are short and to the point, the action and storyline move along nicely, even when the narrator goes over a situation from another character's viewpoint, as he fills in all the gaps that you might find yourself asking, but why did X do Y? A brilliant book.
George Hall doesn't 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 fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has "strangler 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 gets in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former 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 Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.
I do read rubbish books sometimes, but haven't done for a while, the last one that I read that was rubbish gave birth to the post about author's getting it wrong.
Labels: humour