October
The Red House
By Mark Haddon
Review By R. Elliott-Rayer
Ok, so as usual I have managed to inhale this book in 4 days! Bit long for me tbh, but it was touch and go as to whether I was going to make it through the first 30 pages… However one line managed to save my sanity and draw me back into the book… “He….pulled the flush and smelt his fingers. Seasidey. Nice” – for those e of you have read that line I am sure that it was a spit-out your tea moment!
Having read Mark Haddon before, I have always admired the way he has managed to incorporate heavy story lines with Comedy, which allows the reader to almost tip-toe around the sensitivity of the subject but also give you a real insight into how that life can be.
The book as a whole is very electric as it changes POV from paragraph to paragraph, often leaving the reader a little confused as to whose POV you are seeing the story through… In that respect it is very Black Dahlia –ish (for those who have read the James Ellroy novel)
I have actually really enjoyed this book, even though I restarted it 4 times in 2 days, I really had to push through the sometimes overly descriptive prose, through the coutless random paragraphs, which highlight paragraphs from other novels the characters are reading, music they are listening to, to actually find the true story behind the work.
Its nice to read a book that doesn’t just focus on one protagonist nd allows us to see the fatal flaws within each character, and when you input that into an estranged fanmily setting it works really well.
One thing I do feel would be advisabkle with this, and that is to read in as a quick a time as possible, reading a couple of pages a night, would, I imagine, make it very hard to understand the constant POV change, and would be difficult to remember all the tiny little character nuances that help you pick up much quicker, which character you are dealing with.
So… yet again… I liked this book… and will probably re-read it again in a year or so, so not a charity shop book from me…. However can understand why others will really hate this book!
About Mark Haddon
(extract from wikipedia.com)
Haddon was born on 26 September 1962 in Northampton and educated at Uppingham School and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied English. Afterwards, he was employed in several different occupations. One included working with people with disabilities, and another included creating illustrations and cartoons for magazines and newspapers. He lived in Boston, Massachusetts for a year with his wife until they moved back to England. Then, Mark took up painting and selling abstract art. Mark had a studio on the ground floor of his house; he thought that it looked like a primary school library on the inside. This is appropriate, however, considering that Haddon’s work is a self-proclaimed “distillation of all that was best about school.” (Haddon)
In 1987, Haddon wrote his first children’s book, Gilbert’s Gobstopper. This was followed by many other children’s books, which were often self-illustrated.
In 2003, Haddon won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and in 2004, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best First Book for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book which is written from the perspective of a boy with Asperger syndrome. Haddon worked with autistic individuals as a young man. He does however recommend that one reads works by people who have Asperger syndrome themselves. In an interview at Powells.com, Haddon claimed that this was the first book that he wrote intentionally for an adult audience; he was surprised when his publisher suggested marketing it to both adult and child audiences (it has been a great hit with teens and adults alike).His second adult novel, A Spot of Bother, was published in September 2006.
Mark Haddon is also known for his series of Agent Z books, one of which, Agent Z and the Penguin from Mars, was made into a 1996 Children's BBC sitcom. He also wrote the screenplay for the BBC television adaptation of Raymond Briggs's story Fungus the Bogeyman, screened on BBC1 in 2004. In 2007 he wrote the BBC television drama Coming Down the Mountain.
Haddon is a vegetarian, and enjoys vegetarian cookery. He describes himself as a 'hard-line atheist'. In an interview with The Observer, Haddon said "I am atheist in a very religious mould".
In 2009, he donated the short story "The Island" to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Haddon's story was published in the 'Fire' collection.
More Books By Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night Time
A Spot Of Bother
