num_pages: 5
description: George Hall doesn't 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 fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to 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 thewedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former 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 Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.
language: English
title: A Spot of Bother
titlecomplete: A Spot of Bother
characters: Katie Hall, George Hall, Jean Hall, Jamie Hall
genres: Fiction, Family, British Literature, Drama, Humor, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 35801
places: United Kingdom
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Costa Book Award
category: Novel
publisher: Audiobooks