Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

An dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family, from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time The set-up of Mark Haddon's brilliant new novel is simple: Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Richard has just re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over. But because of Haddon's extraordinary narrative technique, the stories of these eight people are anything but simple. Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character, The Red House becomes a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly-guarded secrets and illicit desires, all adding up to a portrait of contemporary family life that is bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt. As we come to know each character they become profoundly real to us. We understand them, even as we come to realize they will never fully understand each other, which is the tragicomedy of every family. The Red House is a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of family in a profoundly empathetic manner -- a novel sure to entrance the millions of readers of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip. At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it’s skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George’s wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband’s ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie’s observation that Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Jamie himself has his own problems — his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie’s wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob. Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart — and come together — as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s hilarious and disturbing portrait of adignified man trying to go insane politely.A Spot of Botheris Mark Haddon’s unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness — literally — of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

From the Whitbread and Los Angeles Times Prize-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a stunningly ambitious, fantastical novel about the theft of female agency by rapacious men and the ways in which archetypal stories can warp history and the present Mark Haddon's breathtaking novel begins with a harrowing plane crash: Maja, the pregnant wife of the unimaginably wealthy Philippe, is killed, but their daughter Angelica survives. Philippe's obsession with the girl's safety morphs into something sinister and grotesque as she grows into a beautiful teen. A young man named Darius, visiting Philippe with a business proposition, encounters Angelica and intuits their secret -- he decides to rescue her, but the attempt goes awry and he flees England by sea. This contemporary story mirrors the ancient legend of Antiochus, whose love for the daughter of his dead wife was discovered by the adventurer Appolinus of Tyre. The tale appeared in many forms through the ages; Apollinus becoming the swashbuckling Pericles in Shakespeare's eponymous play. In The Porpoise, as Angelique comes to terms with a life imprisoned on her father's estate, Darius morphs into Pericles, voyaging through a mythic world. In a bravura feat of storytelling, Haddon recounts his many exploits in thrilling fashion, mining the meaning of the old legends while creating parallels with the monstrous modern world Angelica inhabits. The language is rich and gorgeous; the conjured worlds are perfectly imagined; the plot moves forward at a ferocious pace. But as much as Haddon plays with myth and meaning, his themes speak deeply to the current moment. As profound as it is entertaining, The Porpoise is a major literary achievement by an author whose myriad talents are on full, vivid display.

Große Namen erweisen diesem Buch die Ehre. Ian McEwan, der sich erst vor kurzem mit seiner tiefenpsychologischen Fallstudie Abbitte als Fachmann für die Feinmechanik menschlicher Befindlichkeiten erwiesen hat, schwärmt vom "großartigen Porträt einer kindlichen Seele". Oliver Sacks, der berühmte Romancier und Neurologe, attestiert Mark Haddon "tiefe Einblicke in die autistische Seele, sehr bewegend, sehr glaubwürdig -- und sehr witzig." Dabei ist Christopher Boone, "15 Jahre, 3 Monate und 2 Tage", dem Helden dieser Geschichte, alles Witzige mehr als fremd. Am liebsten wäre Christopher in einer Weltraumkapsel allein auf endloser Fahrt. Die Menschen, ihre Launen und Stimmungswechsel sind dem autistischen Jungen ein ewiges, kaum lösbares Rätsel. Seine Welt stellt sich als streng logisches Fakten- und Zahlenwerk dar. Er schätzt es nicht, angefasst zu werden, nimmt Speisen nur an, wenn sie einander auf dem Teller nicht berühren und nennt die Welt der Primzahlen sein Zuhause. Und Sherlock Holmes natürlich, der in seiner glasklaren Logik für den Jungen ein natürliches Vorbild darstellt. Folgerichtig schlüpft Christopher, als er Wellington, den Hund der Nachbarin Mrs. Shears, mit einer Mistgabel erstochen auffindet, in die Rolle des viktorianischen Superhirns. Die Story, versehen mit zahlreichen Schautafeln, Zeichnungen und Tabellen aus Christophers überreicher Innenwelt, entwickelt gehörige Spannung und staubtrockenen Humor. Ganz gegen den Willen seines Vaters beginnt Christopher seine "Ermittlungen", wird mit einem mehr als unvermuteten Hundekiller konfrontiert, enttarnt ungeahnte amouröse Verflechtungen und löst so nebenbei das Geheimnis um seine "verstorbene" Mutter. Wichtiger und spannender jedoch: Der Leser erhält ein seltenes und kostbares Seelenporträt eines Autisten. Wie lebt ein Junge, der das Mienenspiel seiner Mitmenschen nicht deuten kann? Der ihre metaphernreiche Sprache (Wörter wie "futtern" oder "Augapfel" sind für Christopher beständige Fallstricke) nicht versteht? Der immer die Wahrheit sagt? Dem ein strikter Tagesablauf alles bedeutet, neue Eindrücke hingegen zum gefährlichen Kollaps führen können? Durch den Spiegel von Christophers Auge erleben wir uns Menschen gleichsam als unlogische Geisteszwerge und emotionale Irrläufer, dauerbehindert durch Gefühle, Ressentiments, aber eben auch durch Zweifel und Skrupel. Mark Haddon hat uns mehr als einen Krimi geschenkt -- einen wundervollen Einblick in eine fremde Seelenwelt. --Ravi Unger