Following up a book of rare excellence like Mr. Haddon's first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is difficult. Seeing the world through the eyes of an autistic child like Christopher John Francis Boone is a real revelation. Seeing the world through the growing madness of George Hall in A Spot of Bother may not be the same but it is a worthy successor.
And, let's face it, George may be the one going clinically insane here, but he is surrounded by a family that could certainly try any man's nerves: a wife cheating on him with a former co-worker, an argumentative daughter marrying a man she's not sure she loves and a gay son who has trouble sustaining relationships. Haddon's success in this novel is that he manages all this madness in a way that seems very real.
To be honest, he handles it in such a realistic way that the first third of the novel is a bit of a slog. Interesting in the sense that you are getting to know these characters but trying in the sense that you are waiting for something more to happen. Then, around page 100, events start to accelerate and they don't let up until the final explosion and the wedding reception at the end of the novel (foreshadowed nicely, I might add, by real fireworks--the kind that explode in colors in the sky).
Far be it from me to give away any of the actual events. Needless to say, he pushes the boundaries of believability but doesn't quite break them. If there is a problem here, it's that everyone else except the four adults in this family seem so normal while they struggle with each other's craziness. But, then again, maybe that's how the world seems when we compare our families to the world at large. Which may be why this novel is fun to read.