After attending several writing workshops in recent months, I've noted the popularity of fragmented, stream-of-consciousness writing among men of a certain demographic. White, aged somewhere between skinny hipster and the first thickening of the waistline, well-educated, enamored of morose, Sisyphean humor à la David Sedaris or, oh, let's say Mark Haddon. They write to a beat, disguising punchlines of angst in scattered phrases that connect like poetry but which strive to convey plot and charact...

I liked the ride on this one a lot, though I can’t easily predict which friends would be equally pleased. There is a lot to be said about trusting a good chef to know what to serve. So one should release expectations before cracking this book. There is no wondrous Asperger savant kid in this one nor hapless and resilient man with a humorous Walter Mitty-like interior monologue. Here we get an extended dysfunctional English family (actually the families of two siblings) thrown together on a holid...

This "Sound and the Fury" wannabe actually really truly signifies... nothing. But it's not wholly without merits. The prose is immersive, as "everyone in their little worlds" start to fall apart just as they barely begin to come together.

Extreme speed datingWhat’s on your iPod right now?PING!If you were a book title, what would you be?PING!What’s your worst memory from childhood?PING!Do you have any memories from childhood?PING!If you could own an owl, like Harry Potter’s Hedwig, what would you call it?PING!Why are you vegetarian? Why aren’t you vegetarian?PING!Is there anyone here who hasn’t tried to kiss Melissa?PING!What was the last message on your phone?PING!Can you make a rocket out of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda?PING!...

The first 40 pages were tedious and the next 60 were not much better, but after that the author seems to find a workable rhythm and attempts to figure out a novel's form for his ideas. One of the main problems is that Haddon seems to have graduated from the Bronte school of fiction and his use of descriptive adjectives is way beyond my ability to tolerate. I could have done without phrases like "The swill and chatter of water" on page 144 or "Bruised purple sky, wind like a train, the landscape

I was very fond of the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and was looking forward to this novel by Mark Haddon. Unfortunately, this novel, The Red House, disappointed me greatly. The writing is very self-conscious and it is difficult to get a sense of the story which is obfuscated by the writing itself.Basically, the story is about a brother and a sister who have been together only one time in fifteen years, at their mother's funeral. The brother, Richard, is a physician a...

I was genuinely thrilled to have the opportunity to read the new novel by Mark Haddon. Like millions I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I really enjoyed A Spot of Bother too. I liked the idea behind this book. A brother and sister holiday together after their mother’s death, taking their children with them to spend a week in a rented holiday cottage on the Welsh border near Hay-on-Wye. The siblings, Angela and Richard, aren’t at all close, so we realise that this may be a...

Once again Mark Haddon demonstrates his remarkable ability to hone tight, true and fascinating glimpses of humanity through the simplest and most mundane of situations. The Red House is enjoyably engaging, with a deep dark undercurrent, a beautiful blend of the mundane and esoteric in the most everyday of circumstances.An extended family spend a first holiday together in a rural cottage. Estranged for 15 years, Richard and his sister Angela meet again at their mother's funeral, then Richard invi...

The best way for me to review this book is to write the review like Haddon wrote this book – sort of a stream of consciousness flowing from the minds of the eight people in the house (of course, mine will just be from my mind, but I think you will get the idea):“Taking your estranged relatives on a weeklong vacation in an isolated house is never a good idea; I can’t even imagine a week with my not-estranged relatives in this manner, and with only one car for all 8 people?!….Does every 18 year-ol...

I now have a new book that I can say is the worst book I have ever read. I say "read", but actually only got to page 84 before I started scanning, hoping there was something worthy of merit about this book. I scanned to the end and was thoroughly disappointed that I'd spent good money to buy this awful bit of literature. The cover boasts "author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", and that is why I bought it. It seems Haddon was riding on the success of that previous wonderful...

It would be very easy to dismiss The Red House as just another book about dysfunctional families. The premise is familiar: Angela, her husband Dominick, and her three children (two teenagers, one eight year old) set off to spend a week in the English countryside with Angela’s brother Richard, a well-off doctor, his new wife Louisa and her spiteful teenage daughter Melissa. The goal is to reconnect after the death of Angela and Richard’s mother.What elevates this book above the standard dysfuncti...

You could imagine hell being like this. Not the fire, not the press of devils, but a freezing unpeopled nowhere, the heart desperate for warmth and companionship, and the mind saying, Do not be fooled, this is not a place. Mark Haddon's Red House is an inventive narrative of a dysfunctional family soap opera. It focuses on the uncomfortable holiday where everybody want it to end and the semblance of a family falls apart at the seams when they are forced to interact. The book follows 8 character

2.5*I read this book because I was unable to lay my hands on a copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timefor a group read.Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside following the death of their mother. 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. Richard p...

I loved "curious incident" and "spot of bother" and I couldn't wait to get my hands on Mark Haddon's New book, "the red house". I have to say that I was disappointed by it. It did not deliver on humour, which I was fully expecting, and my immediate reaction to the prose was that it seemed as though Haddon was hoping for a book award of some sort with is arty fatty air. This was the work of someone who was just trying too hard. And it didn't work. I did not enjoy having to wade through various st...