A Spot of Bother

A Spot of Bother is the second adult novel by Mark Haddon, published in 2006. Its central character, George Hall, believes that the secret of contentment lies in ignoring many things completely.

George is sixty-one and settling into a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to the radio. He is a little distant, a little cautious and not quite at ease with what fatherhood asks of him.

Some things cannot be ignored. He becomes convinced that a skin lesion on his hip is a fatal cancer, and he rejects his doctor's diagnosis of eczema, partly because that doctor had once misdiagnosed his daughter Katie's appendicitis as stomach ache. The novel is about a man who has built a life out of not asking, and who then has to ask.

The novel follows George and his family through the period around his retirement and the wedding arrangements that follow it, and it examines mental health from the position of the person experiencing it rather than from the outside.