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A Spot of Bother

mark haddon

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George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not at quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood, or manly bonhomie. He does not 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 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Her family is not pleased – as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has “strangler’s 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 get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband’s ex-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 Haddon’s disturbing yet amusing 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 bestseller THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. Here the madness – literally – of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2006
Literary awards
costa book award, 
Places
united kingdom, 

This edition

Format
354 pages, Paperback
Published
September 5, 2006 by Doubleday
ISBN
9780385520515
ASIN
0385520514
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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mark haddon

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Mark Haddon is an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). He won the Whitbread Award, the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award, the Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
31(31%)
4 stars
37(37%)
3 stars
31(31%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
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99 reviews All reviews
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Bobby_Jeans
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I went back to compare some of my older 3-star reviews and decided to drop this one down 1 star based on that.

It wasn't good. It wasn't bad.
It was just *shrugs* ..meh.

George reminded me of Harold Fry in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry , a character with whom I could not connect at all. Feeble, weak and unresponsive to surroundings (had a bit more balls though).

Apparently books about retired old men are really not my thing.

Mark Haddon does deserve some credit as his book was easy to read and did seem all the while to be leading up to something.

Somewhat of an anticlimactic ending with none of the answers I had been looking for.

It wasn't good. It wasn't bad.
It was just *shrugs* ..meh.
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Protagonistah
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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After enjoying Curious Incident I’ve had this on my to-read shelf for a long time, but what a colossal disappointment it turned out to be. 500 pages of paper-thin characters going through a series of events with scant insight or wit. Each chapter (some of which are less than a page in length) is written from a different character’s perspective, but their internal monologues all sound the same. The book’s excessive length is attributable in part to Haddon’s constant references to things like “that time in Margate with Maureen and Geoffrey”, which I think aims to build the world beyond these four characters but rings too hollow to be effective. Nothing about this world felt real or interesting, and nothing about these characters felt illuminating or engaging. If I weren’t the sort of stubborn person who always finishes a book once I’ve started, there’s no way I would have made it past the first 100 pages.

Also, one chapter is basically one character retelling an episode of Bob The Builder to us, which is right up there with the most inexplicable editorial choices I have ever encountered in my long life of reading books.
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PrimaryLotusUser
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I pretty much hated this book. It was the type of book that you read because you liked the author's other work, but it's so aggressively bad that it makes you reconsider whether or not you actually liked the author's previous work upon closer consideration.

So what was so bad about it? Well, for the one the characters simply didn't ring true. They all felt poorly sketched out, just a bunch of people having what Haddon would have you believe are constant epiphanies about their sad little lives. He writes in such a way that you can tell he wants the reader to think it's a stunning revelation that this character is having, when it's just another dull moment in a rather dull story. If I had a dollar for every time Haddon made a one sentence paragraph meant to reveal some larger truth about the character's personalities, I'd be a rich man. He also has a nasty habit of ending each "chapter" (there are well over 100 of them, most 2 pages or less) with some half-assed "cliff-hanger", something better suited to the James Pattersons and R.L. Stines of the world.

Haddon doesn't seem to understand his characters, and he doesn't seem to care to, either. He simply throws a jumble of people into awkward situations and has them (over)react like a bunch of unlikeable, selfish jerks and then comment to themselves that, perhaps, they are acting like unlikeable, selfish jerks who are overreacting to what are, in reality, fairly mundane situations. They're sad, selfish little people, yet Haddon seems to think they are endearing.

Finally, he ends the book fairly abruptly and with a neat little bow on top that doesn't suit it. Everything works out for everyone involved, yet no one seemed to learn anything or grow as people. They all ended exactly where they began with no growth whatsoever. I've heard people who are familiar with autism claim that Haddon's sketch of the child in 'A Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime' was actually woefully inaccurate and quite offensive, and seeing the way he handles his characters' problems in this story, I'm much more inclined to believe that. Just an awful, awful book. Haddon seems to think he's writing a British version of 'The Corrections', but he's painfully mistaken. I'll probably not read anything by Haddon again.
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Karhu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Mark Haddon writes of a middle-aged man named George Hall, who is struggling with retirement, his gay son and his boyfriend, his daughter announcing a man he doesn't like, and his wife, who is having an affair with his ex-colleague. Because of all of this, George begins to lose it.

The story revolves around each of the characters, told from the 3rd person omniscient, weaving their problems and thoughts around one another. The book is extremely engaging and I found myself immediately drawn in each time I picked it up. Haddon writes well and is able to portray his characters both in angst and in happiness, which adds to the plot since one finds themselves identifying with the feelings of love, confusion, and upset. It is also an interesting perspective of how parents try to relate and understand their grown children and their decisions.
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ViennaSociety
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Lähes modernin klassikon maineeseen nousseen romaaninsa Yöllisen koiran merkillinen tapaus, 2003 (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, 2003) jälkeen Mark Haddonin toinen aikuisille suunnattu romaani Harmin paikka, 2009 (A Spot of Bother, 2006) oli suuri pettymys. Romaani keskittyy pyörittelemään vanhan englantilaispariskunnan ja tämän lähisuvun arkiongelmia. Eläkkeelle jäänyt George Hall kärsii itsetuhoiseen ahdistukseen asti kuolemanpelosta ja tämän vaimo Jean hyppii vieraissa. Tytär Katie on menossa naimisiin, mutta epäröi onko tuleva puoliso Ray sivistykseltään ihan tarpeeksi korkeaa tasoa hänen standardeihinsa. Poika Jamie on homo, mutta ylenkatsoo suhdettaan Tonyn kanssa pitkälti samoista syistä kuin siskonsakin.

Romaanin ensimmäinen runsas satasivuinen neljännes on minnekään johtamatonta lässytystä ja uuvuttavaa arkiongelmien pyörittelyä. Epäkiinnostavat ja epäsympaattiset henkilöhahmot eivät lukijan kiinnostusta lisää. Kerronnasta puuttuu irvingmäinen huumori ja pilke silmäkulmasta sekä syvällisempi, eksistentialistinen pohdinta. Puuduttavan alun jälkeen kerronta saa hieman jännitettä, kun henkilöhahmot tulevat tutummiksi, ja tuleva katastrofi eli hääjuhlat lähestyy, mutta ei tarpeeksi jotta kiinnostus henkilöiden lukuisiin arkiongelmiin oikeasti heräisi. En yleensä jätä aloittamaani romaania kesken, mutta tällä kertaa se oli hyvin lähellä. Voin henkseleitä paukutellen kuitenkin todeta, että en antanut periksi, vaan sain koko teoksen kahlattua läpi. Ja myönnetäköön kohtuuden nimissä, että olihan siinä muutama hieman vetävämpikin kohta.

Arvioni: 2,2 tähteä viidestä.
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ShiroKoneko
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Easy reading, but too fixated on the often unlikeable characters. In this family the daughter is marrying for the second time, and the 600 plus pages are leading to the wedding that is opposed by the rest of the family in a quiet sulky way. Dad suddenly has an infinitesimal health scare and starts going nuts adding to the busy self centered schedules of the other members.
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Kryner
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book was so uncomfortable to read - really had to push through to finish. Nothing like the curious incident of the dog in the night which was super charming and beautiful to read. So many times I wanted to stop reading it oops
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