The Red House

I really, really liked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, so I didn't actually even read the description of his newest book, The Red House before I put it in my queue at the library.  If I had, I probably would not have checked it out.

Mark Haddon is a pretty darn good writer, and this book is told in a readable stream of consciousness style from the various perspectives of about eight of its main characters.  It requires a little bit of work from the reader to keep things straight. I would have not minded the work for that, except that I think (okay, I know) that I am pretty uninterested in the day-to-day squabbles of a dysfunctional family when I read novels.

It's not that I mind flawed characters. I love some flawed (and three-dimensional) characters.  I just get quite tired of people who bicker with each other and who need to go to therapy.  Good thing that the library came through with a Murakami for me that I have not yet read.