A Spot of Bother

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A Spot of Bother is the second adult novel by the author Mark Haddon, who is best known as the writer of his prize-winning first novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

The book tells the story of George and his family through events that take place after his recent retirement. George is a hypochondriac and suffers from a deteriorating mental state. His wife, Jean, is having an affair with David, an old colleague of George's. Jean alternates between feeling liberated by the affair and guilty about her actions. George's daughter, Katie, is the divorced mother of young Jacob and is engaged to Ray, whom she may not love but who treats her and Jacob well. George's son, Jamie, is comfortable with his homosexuality but is struggling with his feelings towards his "provincial" parents and their attempts to accept his lifestyle.

The novel allows each main character to relate their stories through the third-person narrative. This enables the reader to be presented with multiple points-of-view on the events that take place during the story, giving a richer understanding of the family dynamic. Events are set in place after Katie announces her engagement to Ray, who, while sweet and dependable, is disliked by George, Jean and Jamie. George and Jean reluctantly begin to plan Katie's wedding while Jamie searches for a way to prevent his sister from making what he sees as a huge mistake. During all of this, George discovers a lesion on his hip and has an epiphany about the brevity of life and the certainty of death. To avoid thinking about this terrible new insight, he deliberately occupies himself with other pursuits and begins a slow decline into dementia.

This is Haddon's second novel to deal with mental health issues from the point-of-view of the patient, the first being The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

An early excerpt of A Spot of Bother (at that point titled Blood and Scissors) was published in the book New Beginnings, the proceeds from which benefited the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.