This book was written by Mark Haddon the author of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”. The main characters in the book are George, Jean, Jamie, Katie and David. The main character, George, is suffering from a mental disorder in which he is constantly fearful of death and also suffers from panic attacks. He also insists that his eczema is actually Cancer, and refuses to believe the diagnosis of the doctor, who believes is incompetent (The doctor had once misdiagnosed Appendicitis as being a stomach ache)
This reaches a climax when George tries to cut his eczema off with a pair of scissors. This results in him losing massive amounts of blood (The book describes this very graphically) and he starts to suffer from shock. Reaching the phone, he manages to call an ambulance before collapsing on the floor. However, this results in his wife reaching the house and panicking when seeing the large amount of blood everywhere.
Furthermore, three other story arcs are also reaching a peak at this point. Jamie, George’s homosexual son, has just broken up with his lover, while Katie is facing problems with her soon-to be husband, and Jean is thinking of leaving George for David.
Despite the explicit scenes in the book, I think that the author managed to craft the book perfectly, showing the intertwining story arcs, which really makes the book seem to parallel real life effectively, with details being shown well, allowing the reader to imagine the scene for themselves.
The title also has two meanings (Although this is only my interpretation of the title – each person may have their own viewpoints) of the eczema which is bothering George, being a “Spot of Bother”, and how George dismisses his own illness to his family as being unimportant (initially, he tells this to Jean as he does not want her to interfere having seen her having an affair with another man.).
Therefore, I think that this book a definite must read!
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