A spot of bother : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 0385662432
- ISBN: 9780385662437
- ISBN: 9780385662444 (pbk.)
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Physical Description:
354 p. ; 22 cm. : ill.
print - Publisher: [Toronto] : Doubleday Canada, 2006.
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Older men -- Fiction Middle-aged men -- Fiction Mortality -- Fiction Families -- Fiction |
Genre: | Psychological fiction. Domestic fiction. Domestic > Fiction. |
Available copies
- 15 of 15 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Prince Rupert Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 15 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prince Rupert Library | HADD (Text) | 33294001515725 | Adult Fiction - Second Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
Summary:
George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood, or manly bonhomie. He does not understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Her family is not please—as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Katie can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother, Jean, is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband’s ex-colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nupitals. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart—and come together—as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.