AWashington PostBest Book of the YearFrom Mark Haddon, the bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, comes a dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family life. Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Against the backdrop of a strange family gathering, Haddon skillfully weaves together the stories of eight very different people forced into close quarters. The Red House is a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly guarded secrets and illicit desires, painting a portrait of contemporary family life that is at once bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt.
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AWashington PostBest Book of the YearFrom Mark Haddon, the bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, comes a dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family life. Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Against the backdrop of a strange family gathering, Haddon skillfully weaves together the stories of eight very different people forced into close quarters. The Red House is a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly guarded secrets and illicit desires, painting a portrait of contemporary family life that is at once bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt.
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Mark Haddon is the author of the bestselling novels The Red House and A Spot of Bother, and the short story collection The Pier Falls and Other Stories. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction and is the basis for the Tony Award–winning play. He is the author of a collection of poetry, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, has written and illustrated numerous children’s books, and has won awards for both his radio dramas and his television screenplays. He teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and lives in Oxford, England.
“Absorbing. . . . Brilliant. . . . Haddon wends a careful path in
this novel between the effervescent comedy of quirky families and
the bitter tragedy of dysfunctional ones.”
—The Washington Post
“Haddon delivers a story of remarkable complexity, exploring the
rich interior lives of his characters. . . . Impressive.”
—USA Today
“Particularly fresh and true.”
—O, the Oprah Magazine
“A chaotic but truthful portrait of what family means in this
narcissistic age: less a cohesive whole than a group of individuals
bumping against each other with their own needs, disappointments
and . . . victories.”
—The Seattle Times
“In this absorbing, Virginia Woolf-esque novel . . . an extended
family gathers for a week in the English countryside. Perfect (or
not) for that holiday with the in-laws.” —People Magazine
“The story unfolds from all eight characters’ points of view, a
tricky strategy that pays off, letting Haddon dig convincingly into
all of the failures, worries, and weaknesses that they can’t leave
behind.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Engaging. . . . The quality of the writing allows us to know this
extended clan, who are on a week’s holiday, better than they know
each other.”
—The Independent (London)
“The language of [The Red House] is wonderful—particular, vivid,
attentive.”
—The Plain Dealer
“Mark Haddon is terrifyingly talented.”
—The Times (London)
“Each of the characters acts as a splintered bit of mirror for the
others, so that the reader sees them all from multiple
perspectives. . . . Satisfying and believable. . . . Haddon writes
with a gentle, compassionate sense of irony.”
—The Columbus Dispatch
“[A] hugely enjoyable, sympathetic novel. . . . It is a book of
minor revelations and slow-release secrets.”
—The Observer (London)
“Haddon peers inside the messy dynamics of a group of relatives,
each grappling with their own fears and trying to make sense of
themselves as a family. . . . [The novel] braids together themes of
sexual identity, parental insecurity and sibling rivalry, and no
one gets away unscathed.”
—NPR
“Haddon delights in winkling . . . social misfits out of their
natural habitats and thrusting them into very English comedies of
discombobulation and befuddlement.” —The New York Times
“[Haddon] writes like a dream. Never showy, but often lyrically
descriptive, he takes the reader with him to the core of this crazy
family. . . . He has a true understanding of the human heart.”
—The Spectator (London)
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