I realize that I wouldn’t be very good as a book reviewer…I read lots, but move on to the next book, without archive or recommendation.  But, I have to take pause with this one.

Mark Haddon, himself, warns his readers against using his popular novel, The Curious Incident With a Dog in the Night-time as a textbook about any particular state of being on the spectrum.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book, for its innovative use of text and for its heart warming story.  Christopher John Francis Boone is an engaging character, the first of his sort that I’ve met in literature.  I read this book some time ago and over the past months encountered ‘A Spot of Bother’ by the same author in a second hand book store and so picked it up.

I am sitting here chuckling as I type.  The book has such a refreshing angle and similar to ‘The Curious Incident With a Dog in the Night-time’, much of the intrigue revolves around the development of a very unusual character, in this case, George Hall, the patriarch of a fabulously discordant family.  What is it about laughter at the expense of these fictional characters?  I gauge the success of a book these days, based on my reactions to the believable foibles of invented characters.  George is so unreasonable.  I find myself laughing at him until that inevitable moment when my relationship to him and the events of the narrative cause me to do a 180 and cry for the sad state of his situation.

I’d love to know what you think of this one.  I think that Mark Haddon is an especially gifted writer.

Impeccable description.  A connection of the most impossible-to-connect states of mind and experience.  Fabulous!