A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon

" A painful, funny, humane novel; beautifully written, addictively readable" The Times.

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 unpredictable daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased- as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has "stranglers hands". Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the way he cares for her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by the way the wedding planning gets in the way of her 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.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, creator of the unforgettable Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is an absolute treat. I didn't think he could improve on that novel, yet he has really pulled it off. George is convinced he has cancer, but cannot talk about this fear with his family. He keeps his thoughts to himself, compounding his morbid fears, his imagination running away with him... "If he drank enough whisky he might be able to summon the courage to crash the car. There was a big stone gateway on the A16 this side of Stamford. He could hit it doing 90 m.p.h with no difficulty whatsoever. But what if his nerve failed? What if he were too drunk to control the car? What if someone pulled out of the drive? What if he killed them, paralysed himself and died of cancer in a wheelchair in prison?"
Some of George's inner musings are hilarious, such as his opinion on his homosexual son, Jamie..."He didn't have a problem with homosexuality per se. Men having sex with men. One could imagine, if one was in the business of imagining such things, that there were situations where it might happen, situations in which chaps were denied the normal outlets. Military camps. Long sea voyages. One didn't want to dwell on the plumbing but one could almost see it as a sporting activity. Latting off steam. High spirits. Handshake and a hot shower afterwards. It was the thought of men purchasing furniture together which disturbed him. Men snuggling. More disconcerting somehow, than shenanigans in public toilets."
At the start of the novel, George was really the only character I liked, (excluding Ray), yet the flawed family members all come good by the end of the novel, and though it is a happy ending it never verges on trite.
I loved the exchanges between Katie's son Jacob and the family, Haddon certainly has a talent for capturing the innocence and comedy of childhood.
I adored Ray's character, and Katie's taking him for granted annoyed me at times, yet this is merely testament to how utterly believable the characters are. I couldn't quite understand why the family were all so opposed to the wedding as I felt that Ray was without a doubt the most consistently lovely character.
I would recommend this book to anyone and eceryone. It is laugh out loud funny, in places shocking and horrifying (George taking his "lesion" into his own hands), and made me weep several times. This novel transcends genre..read it!

"Haddon's style is a readers bliss. He writes seamless prose. The words are melted into meaning...Haddon's gift is to make us look at ourselves when we think we're looking away, being entertained." Scotsman