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The Red House: A Novel
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The Red House: A Novel
Unavailable
The Red House: A Novel
Audiobook9 hours

The Red House: A Novel

Written by Mark Haddon

Narrated by Maxwell Caulfield

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

An dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family, from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The set-up of Mark Haddon's brilliant new novel is simple: Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. 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. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over.

But because of Haddon's extraordinary narrative technique, the stories of these eight people are anything but simple. Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character, The Red House becomes a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly-guarded secrets and illicit desires, all adding up to a portrait of contemporary family life that is bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt. As we come to know each character they become profoundly real to us. We understand them, even as we come to realize they will never fully understand each other, which is the tragicomedy of every family.

The Red House is a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of family in a profoundly empathetic manner -- a novel sure to entrance the millions of readers of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 12, 2012
ISBN9780307988362
Unavailable
The Red House: A Novel
Author

Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon has written a number of successful picture books with HarperCollins, including Sea of Tranquility, illustrated by Christian Birmingham, and is best known for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two sons.

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Reviews for The Red House

Rating: 3.129287598944591 out of 5 stars
3/5

379 ratings63 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A domestic novel, beautifully done. Add an extra half star. Not quite anarchic enough for me - still love the Agent Z books the best....
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A brother and sister together with their families spent a holiday week together. The brother and sister did not have much of a contact during the last years. It turns out that all people, including the children have their history and their present problems. The story starts slowly with the usual conversations that you expect in such a situation. The story becomes interesting during the last days of the week.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    BORING, NO LIKABLE CHARACTERS, A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT WAS PRETTY GOOD. SHOULD HAVE DUMPED IT AFTER 1ST CHAPTER. WHY I AM NOT CRAZY ABOUT FICTION.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    What a trying ordeal it was to wade through this book. The annoying italics to designate a conversation were unbearable and the characters unlikeable. It was really almost all I could manage not to fling this book across the room at times, but it being a library book I decided against it!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Sad when a writer seems to peak with his first novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting read. A kind of multi perspective view of a family holiday with troubled secrets emerging. I felt for most of the characters and found it an engaging read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this family story, and found it a quick but interesting read. The characters are fairly believable and Haddon handled well the juggling of eight different interiors, though I did occasionally find myself trying to work out whose interior an isolated paragraph was meant to be - luckily, not too much to the detriment of the narrative's progression. Sometimes books which depart from the traditional narrative form can be a little too clever, and I think this generally escapes that hazard, though in places the form almost overshadows the story. In retrospect I find myself wondering if a traditional narrative would work better (or even a more traditional multi-view narrative, e.g. one chapter per character)- probably not, actually, as part of the charm is the quick transition from character to character as if you are scanning the emotional tenor of the room. Not as original as Dog in the Night-time, but certainly worth reading.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There's a brief scene in this novel where several characters are trying to asssemble a puzzle, with some frustration and not much success. One possible "like it or hate it" outcome of this novel is that you'll feel the same way-- too many jumbled pieces, no coherent overall picture.Haddon writes the novel from eight points of view (the eight characters in the novel) in short bursts of dialogue, interior and exterior, ranging from a paragraph to about three pages apiece. People briefly connect (rarely), more often collide, deflect, dissemble, outright lie (to themselves and to others). Misdirection is the name of the game. Feelings and emotions are buried and left to seethe. Unhealthy atmosphere for a family vacation and ideal setup to show how massively one family can be dysfunctional? You bet.The key to reading this novel is tenacity, not to skim over the brief brusts of text and to work hard at assembling the fragments (the "puzzle pieces") into, if not a satisfying whole, than at least something loosely linked together to give an overall idea of how families work and do not work together. I'm not sure that Haddon ever quite does pull of the trick, in the end, of putting the puzzle pieces into what's shown on the box, but I do think we come up with at least a reasonably satisfying hazy, shifting concept of what it means to be a family. No perfection is achieved, no resolutions are arrived at, no ends are tidly put away, but that's okay. I'll admit I did end the novel feeling a little unsatisfied, not because I wanted a happy ending or because I was invested in narrative resolution, but simply because Haddon seemed only to reinforce the point that "things are basically still jumbled and problematic" with no real forward thrust in the novel beyond that basic idea. There is character development, yes, but I'm not sure how far it takes us in terms of working through ideas in the novel so much as it's just stating the same ideas over and over (this is true to varying degrees, depending on the character in question).My advice would be to take this one slowly and not to be tempted to rush by the rapidly-shifting points of view; it looks deceptively like a quick read, but to make it one would be to sell it short. Mull over it and turn the core ideas over in your mind and try to see beyond the fragments; it may not be a picture that Haddon wants you to see at all, but this may be the most interesting idea of all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Daily crises, confrontations, misunderstandings, adolescent hormonal outbreaks, sexual tension, attempted suicide, a nervous breakdown, a dramatic brush with death, and no cell phone reception except in a tiny corner of an upstairs bedroom don’t make for a relaxing family holiday, but make The Red House by Mark Haddon, where much of what happens is happening inside someone’s head, an intriguing novel of family and identity. (The English family in this novel, from the teenagers to the adults, are masters of the understatement and are NOT into expressing their feelings. The author's experimental writing style, which I think is used as an attempt to convey the "feel" of people's actual thoughts, also seems to be turning readers off, and needs some getting used to.)Read complete review at Bay State Reader's Advisory blog.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An estranged brother and sister and their families get together for a week long vacation in a remote Welsh valley after their mother dies. Richard has re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter; Angela has a feckless husband, three children and the ghost of her deformed stillborn child. Told over seven days the narration is a stream of consciousness flowing from the minds of the eight people in the house, a technique that has left the story fragmented and disappointing. The draft should have been heavily edited and resulted in half the number of pages. Only read because of the fantastic cover with the blue willow pattern design, disappointed by the contents.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Red House by Mark Haddon - Good

    Ah, this was much better than "A Spot of Bother" but still not quite as good as "Curious Incident..".

    Anyway... Angela and Richard's Mother has passed away. They have been living at opposite ends of the country - very different lives - and Richard decides to bring both families together for a week's holiday in the countryside.

    Both families are dysfunctional. Each member has his or her own problems and neuroses and these play out as the week progresses. The author has a wonderful way of inhabiting the minds of children and bringing their characters out - much more so than with adults and their mid-life crises - so for me, Alex, Daisy, Melissa and, especially, Benji are the most insightful.

    At the end of the week, they go their separate ways. Things have changed, but not necessarily resolved. As to what happens when they return to their real lives - who knows?

    Lovely thoughtful book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I adored a "Spot of Bother" and his previous book about the dog in the night. This book didn't make me laugh, move me at the same level. But tis was a very good book. Some family memers from the kind of families we have now (biological, extended through marriage and divorce, you get the idea). One of those almost families spend a week together in a charming/ nature/ what have you place. What happens. Some good things. Don't expect too much. I would probably give this a 4 if I hadn't loved the previous two books by Haddon so much.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If I ever go on a week holiday with another family, I hope it does not include as much drama as this one!
    And yet the novel is rather slow. First it has to establish the premise for these two families to take a vacation together in the first place, because even though Richard and Angela are siblings, they are not close.
    Then the characters need to be developed, all eight of them. In audio, it took a long time for me to remember all the family connections, even though it is just a family of five and one of three. The back and forth of whose brain was narrating confused for quite a while. (probably didn't help there was a lot of start/stop in my listening). Everyone, even the 8yr old, has drama in their life and it seems to all come up in this one week away. Yikes. None of the plotlines are terrible or farfetched, but all at once was a bit much. There is a good definition of love in an exhange between Richard and Louisa.
    For the most part, it is an ok book, not terrible, not fascinating or page-turning, just fine.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I read The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time and really enjoyed so I came to this book with a bit of expectation. I was disappointed that it wasn’t as off-beat as the other book but it was still a well written book. The story is about a dysfunctional family who go on holiday with some distant family members.

    It is well written, believable characters, well paced but dreary as hell.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not one but two dysfunctional families who are related---not a terrific listening experience although the reader, Maxwell Caulfield, is great. Haddon has a couple of the characters---Richard, in particular, go wandering off with thoughts about odd things---or maybe this is just Haddon trying to put in some of his own thinking. Do they all benefit from this experience on a "vacation" together---maybe a little---not exactly your typical run of problems come up but as with any families, every family is its own thing and two of them overlapping creates additional problems.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book took much longer to snag me than it should have. The chapters are broken down by the days the two families are on vacation together, and the stream of consciousness will jump between characters sometimes with every chapter. Steer clear if this type of novel annoys the shit out of you.

    Haddon doesn't really have a firm grasp on a female perspective, so those parts seemed lacking to me. I mean hell, one of the characters realizes she's a lesbian and it seemed empty, to me. As well as all the other females voices.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5

    I really liked this novel by Haddon; I think as much as I enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which I read several years ago. They are quite different story lines, but the narrative voice and some of the themes are similar. Haddon certainly has a singular 'voice' in his novels, and is enjoy it every bit as much as the next joe with a bad case of Anglophelia. Perhaps a little more, at times.

    In this one, the switches between perspectives and snippets of texts or songs interspersed with the story was confusing, at first, but I soon found my Haddon rhythm and was deeply immersed, while I was reading it. I would recommend it because it made me think about my own relationship with my husband. Also it made me think a lot. It made me laugh occasionally, and overall it kept me very engaged.

    I really enjoyed the plot, the human observation and the tentative ending. It is a great exercise in drawing out the complexities of families and relationships, it allowed me to feel personally connected and close to the psyche of each character. And even though some people think there should have been some kind of resolving of at least one of the story lines in the novel, I think it ended just the way group vacations usually do; awkwardly fond of everyone there, with some little resolve to seeing them once again soon. Just lovely.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Could not finish this. The point-of-view jumps around and the character's imaginations are free mixed with the actual events. It might be possible that reading it would be better than listening to it, but I doubt it.

    Confusing and boring, don't really need a strike three.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Although I was a little at a loss to start with, with all the names and moods switching back and forth, I soon got fully into it and surfed the stormy family waters. It is an interesting idea, to show everyone's thoughts as directly as possible, and so very much different from everybody else's. I very much injoyed the idea and the way it was presented - an accomplished, and therefore enjoyable work.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Hated it. Struggled all the way through it. Dysfunctional family, confusing to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Richard and Angela, estranged siblings who have just lost their mother, bring their tense nuclear families to a cottage in the Welch countryside for a week-long holiday. Typical family discord fare, but Haddon tackles the interpersonal and intra-personal landscape with a challenging narrative technique: each new paragraph is narrated from a different character's point of view. This requires concentration as the reader is getting to know the characters and I found it rather distracting for the first third of the novel. Once I felt like I had the cast of characters straight, I found the technique interesting; it creates a choppy and disconnected pace that mirrors the dysfunction of the characters' relationships. This novel is all about relationships and only one character emerges as anyone I'd want to get to know better (Alex has promise but he also has too much teenage boy about him for me to want to spend time in his company). If you tend to like novels with likable characters, this one may not be for you, but Haddon's wry humor and his merciless depiction of people trying to establish connection and feel like their lives matter won me over in the end.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If one of Haddon's characters was to describe this book, it would be a 'Marmite' kind of book. On the surface, it's not all that promising - two estranged siblings and their assorted dysfunctional families spending a week holidaying together in a fairly remote cottage on the Welsh border.

    If you approach it expecting a cosy, conventional tale of sibling rivalries being slowly resolved over mugs of cocoa while the children learn to get on by not having cell or wireless access, you'll put this down after a few pages scratching your head. Because it's not like that at all.

    Each chapter relates the events of one day; each paragraph is told from the viewpoint (and often in the voice of) one of the eight characters. From the outset, this is unsettling and requires a great deal of concentration. Once Haddon is sure you are concentrating, however, he unravels a spectacular tale of real people dealing with real lives in all their discomfort and disarray


    Woven through the story is the implied (and occasionally present) ninth voice, that of Angela's stillborn daughter. This device lifts some of the mundane to an altogether different level, as Angela slowly unravels in the way her mother clearly did.

    Each of the characters reaches some kind of epiphany, but at the end - and true to life in general, and these characters in particular, nothing is really resolved. Daisy's journey may appear the most developed, but she is (and we are) still not really sure what's going on by the end. Has Alex made the break from his family to independence? Has Melissa learned her lesson? Has Louisa come to understand Richard? Has Richard? Had Dominic resolved his affair? Has Benjy learned about growing up (and, most intriguingly for me: is Benjy mildly autistic and undiagnosed, or is he just 'one of those kids'?)

    Only time will tell; not time we get to spend with them in this story, but the week we spend with them all enriches everyone. Magnificent.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I seem to be in the minority given previously posted reviews, I must admit that I really liked this book. It tells the story of an estranged brother and sister who, with their families, spend a week together on vacation in Wales. So much happens in these characters' minds and hearts! We see a brother and sister who grew up together, but have such different recollections of their childhood and their parents. Young adults struggling with their sexuality. Spouses struggling with the state of their marriages. All while trying to relax and enjoy time together away from the pressures of work and home.Mark Haddon shows real skill in the writing style he employed. Every chapter contains short sections from the point of view of every character. Sometimes in conversation; others times their thoughts. And thoughts wander, and maybe aren't related to what's going on at the moment. Mr. Haddon pulls this off without confusing the reader. The glimpses of the internal lives of the characters helped me to identify with them; like the say about icebergs, 90% is below the surface. This book, like Curious Incident, had strong character voice(s) -- something I really like about Mr. Haddon's writing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Two and a half stars.
    I don't know how he kept this up. Interesting and off putting at the same time. Annoying. A lot of naval gazing.
    The shifting view point was making me dizzy.
    Your mileage may vary.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and A Spot of Bother, so I was very excited once I heard about this novel, and then became utterly disappointed with what a chore this one is to read. It's told in a stream of consciousness style when eight people get together -- an estranged brother and sister and their two families for a week of vacation after the brother and sister's mother died. The point of view shifts from one person's interior thoughts to the next from one paragraph to another, but often the switch occurs within a paragraph. Countless times throughout the book you have to re-read sections to figure out whose point of view it is, and a several times it's impossible to guess. Often there are passages when we get excerpts of what someone is reading -- and you can't always be sure which character it is. While this may be interesting the first few times, it quickly becomes tedious. Then there are riffs like this one:

    Marja, Helmand. The sniper far back enough from the window to stop sun flaring on the rifle sight. Crack and kickback. A marine stumbles under the weight of his red buttonhole. Dawn light on wile horses in the Kentii Mountains. Huddershfield, brown sugar bubbling in a tarnished spoon. Turtles drown in oil. The purr of binary, a trillion ones and zeroes. The swill of bonds and futures. Reckitt Benckiser, Smith and Nephew. Rifts and magma chambers. Eyjafjallajokull smoking like a witch's cauldron.

    It goes on like this for many more lines -- I'm not sure what it's supposed to be -- descriptions of all that's going on in the world, while these 8 people try to make sense of their lives?

    Late in the book, we just get a long list of every item in a novelty shop the characters visit. It was fun when Tim O'Brien used that trick in The Things They Carried because each person's possessions revealed their personality, but I'm not sure what knowing all the curios in this paritcular curio shop does for me or any of the characters.

    It's too bad because the characters' dilemmas -- the sister is going crazy over memories of her deformed stillborn baby, her ambition-less husband is having an affair, the brother is learning his wife has secrets and he has to be a better husband -- are all very interesting, not to mention the children's various problems -- the most interesting of which is a teenage girl coming to a slow realization of her sexual orientation. There was enough tension and character development in the book to make it somewhat worthwhile, but you have to have a lot of patience for artsy, fartsy writerly technigues to get through it. (Some readers might like the experimentation, but I obviously am not one of them.)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A sensitive portrait of contemporary characters with contemporary problems, all too recognizable and, for that reason, rather painful to read. It might have gone over better if the author had included a bit of humor. You fear more for these people than you care for them.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhh. A book where all the adults whine and complain about time passing them by, why did they make these decisions, there's gotta be a better person out there than my spouse... These people make me terrified of becoming "middle-aged."
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I didn't like this. I think I didnt even finish it. I took it out of the library because I liked his other book a lot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mark Haddon has empathy for many kinds of people. In the Red House, there are two families, linked by a brother and sister. The sister has a husband and three children. The brother has a wife and a stepdaughter. Each character tells his side of the story in jarring segments that don't let you know the point of view has changed until you are halfway through a paragraph, or even already finished with that segment. This does not make deciphering the meaning easy.

    Still, I soldiered on because I am impressed with the intention of the book which is to demonstrate how difficult it is for anyone to know anyone no matter how intimately you are attached. The brother and sister remember their childhoods quite differently. The teenage girls might be the most likely to bond yet a sudden incident repels them from each other. The youngest member of the family, an eight year old boy named Benjamin, seems to live in his own world, and rarely tries to say in words what he is thinking. He acts everything out, with violent war games, video games, and fantasies.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was a huge fan of Curious Incident of the... I recommended it to many others and felt the message to be vital to those of us in education. A new look , so to speak.
    But, this book , as it stripped away the layers in a typical? dysfunctional family, left me looking for other things to do rather than finish reading it.
    Writing was very good but the story was not.