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A Spot Of Bother
by Mark Haddon


8.3

based on 26 reviews
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based on 25 votes
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The British author's darkly comedic second novel (following the bestselling "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time") centers on a troubled family headed by 61-year-old retiree George Hall, who is convinced he has cancer.

Doubleday, 368 pages
09/05/2006
$24.95

ISBN: 0385520514

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Library Journal Donna Bettencourt

Haddon perfectly captures his characters' frailties and strengths while injecting humor with pinpoint accuracy. [1 Sept 2006, p.136]

USA Today Donna Freydkin

But the observations are so astute, so gently funny, so touching, that you get caught up in the fate of the well-meaning, if slightly imprudent, Hall family.

The New York Times Book Review David Kamp

[Haddon's] so wondrously articulate, so rigorous in thinking through his characters' mind-sets, that A Spot of Bother serves as a fine example of why novels exist. Really, does any other art form do nuance so well, or the telling detail (“the pig-shaped notepad on the phone table”) or the internal monologue?

Washington Post Michael Dirda

Superbly entertaining.

The Independent Rebecca Pearson

This a superb novel, and I was shocked when it didn't made the Man Booker longlist.

Chicago Sun-Times Carlo Wolff

An exceptionally assured and versatile writer, Haddon artfully guides the Halls -- and the reader -- toward light at the end of a complicated domestic tunnel. His craftsmanship is dazzling, his sense of character profound, his kindness toward his creations that of a consummate caregiver. Humorous, occasionally heart-rending and always enthralling, A Spot of Bother is a wonder and a joy.

Daily Telegraph Caroline Moore

The mad mundanity with which George directs his DIY organisational skills towards solving his particular spot of bother – with a pair of kitchen scissors – is unforgettable.

The Observer Adam Phillips

Haddon is trying to rescue something important about literalness in a genre, the modern novel, that has always been suspicious of it. This makes A Spot of Bother at once gruelling, precise and mawkishly sentimental, but it also makes us unsure, as folk stories do, which is the more telling.

Chicago Tribune Art Winslow

A bittersweet and at times hilarious look at chaos theory in action.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Heather Birrell

Where the novel succeeds brilliantly is in its uncommon, unpretentious willingness to capture the intricacies of communication between children, parents and lovers, without resorting to easy cynicism, following complex everyday family dramas through to provisionally happy resolutions.

Boston Globe Jennifer Haigh

A deft, engaging comedy of manners.

PopMatters Mark Haddon

Holds up just fine. Haddon shows that despite being told countless times in other forms, what the most mundane of family dramas was missing was his empathetic voice.

Los Angeles Times Heller McAlpin

Although not as startlingly original as his lauded debut, A Spot of Bother snaps, crackles and pops with humor and pathos as Haddon depicts family members driving one another crazy.

New York Observer Louisa Thomas

[Haddon's] dry, nimble style is pitch perfect, capturing the hectic anxieties of a family constantly teetering on the edge between respectability and humiliation; his restraint balances the excesses of the family high jinks. It's a style that, like the Halls, operates by omission and understatement. [18 Sept 2006]

Entertainment Weekly Whitney Pastorek

In trying to follow four major emotional crises, Haddon sometimes makes clunky leaps in perspective. If "Curious Incident" was a laser beam trained on one fascinatingly flawed character, A Spot of Bother is a shotgun blast.

Publishers Weekly

Haddon subtly pulls it all together with sparkling asides and a genuine sympathy for his poor Halls...Great fun. [17 July 2006, p.134]

Kirkus Reviews

Though Haddon is a clever writer with an eye and ear for the absurdities of everyday life, the results here fall somewhere between the psychological depth of Anne Tyler and the breeziness of Nick Hornby.

San Francisco Chronicle Rachel Howard

It's a pleasant comic caper, the literary equivalent of a night spent watching a romantic comedy. There's nothing wrong with it, but nothing hugely memorable, either.

Wall Street Journal Frances Taliaferro

The surprise is that after spending a few hundred pages with these not- awfully-lovable characters, you come to regard them with something like affection.

The New Yorker

Haddon has a deft comic touch, but he pushes his characters too hard toward epiphanies, and in the end this antic farce is merely affable, without surprises.

The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson

Eventually, he hits a rhythm that turns dozens of tiny personal cliffhangers...into a lumpy but genial compulsive page-turner. But first, Haddon has to yank his audience far enough into George's head that they care about the people around him. The journey there could have been much smoother.

Village Voice Alexis Soloski

Though he mercifully interrupts George's torments with chapters devoted to other members of the family, these sections function mostly as reprieve, never inducing the same stomach-churning immediacy or interest.

Daily Telegraph Charlotte Moore

A Spot of Bother is too long by at least a third. Momentum is dissipated by the stop-start narrative style and by a series of false climaxes. It is wry, warm-hearted and entertaining, but it's flabby where "The Curious Incident" was taut, jaded where the other was fresh.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

The author’s effort to treat this abundant ordinariness as something extraordinary never works. And the book’s comically commonplace touches are too weary to seem like anything new.

Houston Chronicle Barbara Liss

Unfortunately, we are able to see to the end of the book halfway through, and some of the author's set pieces already feel like used goods.

Sydney Morning Herald Mindy Laube

While the characterisation can't be faulted, A Spot of Bother fails to fulfil its early promise. What initially shapes up as a disquietingly soft stab in the human heart turns obvious and formulaic.

The average user rating for this book is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Eric S gave it a7:
Haddon seems to be trying to turn out the UK version of Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" but without Franzen's depth of character development. His attempts to put his characters in harm's way again and again seems a bit forced. Nonetheless, this was a quick, fun read, and if it doesn't rise to the heights of "...Dog..." that may be too high a bar to set for any novel.

Tim E gave it a9:
One has to get to about the middle of the book before the pieces start to come together on this darkly humourous novel. It's a subtle reminder of the inner challenges facing us all and has a flow that allows you to grow to care about each of the family members detailed in the story.

Donald P gave it a10:
I love Haddon's writing style, the way he goes through each character so effortlessly relaying their emotions on to us is just brilliant. I cannot wait to his next novel.

J.R. gave it an8:
Mark Haddon does a great job developing characters and giving the reader quality insight into their psyche. It is both hilarious and tragic. A great read. Also recommend his first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Particularly great for anyone who has known a person diagnosed with autism.

Suzette G gave it an8:
Mindboggling in entering the mind of a human overwhelmed by life. Creepy in an informative way. Resolution seems too easy after the fantastical suffering and conflict of everyday relations. One wonders about the privileged basis of authorial information, whether it is empirical or rationally enquired.

James D gave it a10:
I adored this book. His ability to portray conversations between the characters and generations makes this a very enjoyable book to read.

nick h gave it an8:
As good as Kingsley Amis in his prime, before he forgot, or could no longer be bothered, to construct readable sentences. A few modern novelists could learn a lot from Haddon about lasting writing being about more than striking fashionable attitudes. I'm looking at you here Ali, and you Zadie.

A Spot Of Bother by Mark Haddon

A Spot Of Bother
by Mark Haddon