In his latest novel, Mark Haddon perfectly captures both a sense of domesticity and the tensions between people brought together by family ties. Richard, an Edinburgh doctor, is trying to reconcile with his sister Angela after their mother’s death. In an attempt to jolly everyone along together, he has rented a holiday cottage in Herefordshire. Along for the jaunt is Dominic, Angela’s weak and lazy husband, and their children, teenagers Alex and Daisy, and the endearing Benjy – a swashbuckling, ninja-fighting, deeply sensitive 8-year-old. Richard himself brings his second wife Louisa, and her daughter Melissa – an unusually cruel teen queen.
Haddon, author of the award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, applies a zoom lens of great delicacy and insight to the week-long holiday. He shifts constantly between viewpoints, sliding in and out of each person’s thoughts so that you feel intimately close to each of them. This is works for most of the characters, who are all lugging baggage of some sort – a medical malpractice suit hangs over Richard, Dominic tries to get cell phone reception to call his mistress and Angela feels she is slowly losing her mind as the ghost of her stillborn daughter haunts her.
The Red House evokes the mood of family holidays wonderfully – everyone squashed into the car for an outing whether they like it or not, rowdy dinners around the table, the perpetual question of “Who’s on dinner tonight?” There are visits to a local castle and long walks in wet weather. It’s not the plot that is necessarily impressive, rather it’s the spot-on voices of Haddon’s characters and his calm but moving prose that really drive this book. As the weather gets chillier, this is a perfect book to curl up with and lose yourself in.
