Book Review: "The Red House" by Mark Haddon

After his mother's death, Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela's stillborn daughter.

Mark Haddon was one of those authors who wrote one book everyone knows and then faded into obscurity. Maybe it was the 3 years between The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother that did him in. That 3 year gap may have been long enough for people to forget who he was. Or maybe people never remembered the name of the author, only remembering the title of the book. I have found that most people I've talked to about Curious Incident don't actually know the author's name. Which is a shame as he is a great author.

After the success of Curious Incident I can only presume that people wanted more of the same, and A Spot of Bother was not that. In fact, according to Wikipedia, A Spot of Bother received mostly mixed reviews. I feel this is undeserved, as it was a great book that I feel more people need to pick up and give a chance. Yes, it is not Curious Incident, but it's good for an author to try and change and adapt, to never be stale.

Why do I bring all of this up? Because The Red House is another Mark Haddon book that seems to have flown relatively under the radar. In addition to that it runs more so in the style of A Spot of Bother than Curious Incident. This is not, of course, a bad thing. It should also be noted that though it is more in common with A Spot of Bother the book is not just a carbon copy of it.

Blimey, it's taking me far too long to get here, but let's actually talk about the book itself. As the synopsis shows, the book is about two families coming together for a holiday after the death of a relative. This initially reminded me of The Darjeeling Limited, a simply fantastic film about three brothers attempting to bond on a holiday after the death of their father. Over the seven days the families stay in this house not a massive amount particularly happens, but rather lots of little things.

You see, the beauty of The Red House lies in the fact that Mark Haddon makes the mundane and the fairly ordinary interesting to read about. Of course, some things aren't quite that ordinary, but still believable, yet never before have I found someone going on an early morning run so interesting, nor has saying grace at the dinner table been such an important issue. These little events have massive repercussions throughout the book.

The way in which Haddon makes these issues interesting is through his writing style. This style is nothing like his previous two adult books, nor is it like any book I've read with a similar focus. The Red House has a narrative that focuses upon a stream of consciousness. Though all written in third person it has the feel of a book written in first person. Usually a section will focus upon a single character, going through their thoughts, feelings and actions as if they are personally contemplating the situation. Sometimes the narrative focus will switch during a paragraph or section, which doesn’t confuse but rather intensifies any drama happening at the current moment in time.

This focus is also enhanced by Haddon’s choice of language when focussing on each character. When focussing on Benjy, the 8 year old boy, the words used will be more simplistic and sentence structure less complex, yet when focussing on Alex, the 17 year old boy, the writing will be more centralised around Alex, swear words will be used more often and more sexual language will be used. This helps the reader understand each character more.

However, it has to be said that understanding who each member of the family is and where they fit in can be quite difficult at first. It took me a while to figure out a family tree, which I then needed to write up as a quick reference. The narrative structure, though good for the story, did not help me get to grips with the family structure, though when this issue was overcome there are no longer any issues with the narrative.

Throughout the book there are a massive amount of twists and turns. Plot gets slowly dispensed, keeping the reader in suspense. Most of the plot gets resolved in the last quarter of the book, though there are points where mini-plots end earlier. Haddon does seem to run out of steam near the end, however, with three characters having to be rescued and brought back home within the week, but he recuperates within the ending of the book.

Finishing the book I was left somewhat upset. I had enjoyed reading about these people, as dysfunctional as they were. Yes, some of them (read: most of them) were horrible people, but they weren’t necessarily horrible people. They were just normal people. And leaving them made me feel sad. Some people had come out better, some came out worse, some the same, but this didn’t matter. This was a week of escape from a life which they would go back to and experience their lives in almost the same way. This is, at least, how I interpreted things. Things just keep on going the same.

The Red House is definitely a book you should read, especially if you’ve liked Haddon’s previous work. It brings intrigue to the normalcy of life and does so through people you will probably feel you already know. It’s not too easy to read at first, but the style of writing will draw you in and keep you going throughout.