The House That Is Not A Home

Read the summary of Mark Haddon's 'The Red House', and wasn't at all attracted to it. Four adults, four children, all strangers to one another, kinda forced to share seven days in proximity. And meals. I wouldn't do this in real life, why would I even want to read it in a book. The developments would probably annoyed the hell out of me. They did.

A storyline set near the Welsh border Hay-on-Wye, of incidents surrounding an estranged English family on vacation. It follows Richard, the brother (with his second wife Louisa and 15-yr-old stepdaughter Melissa), reaching out to his sister Angela (and her husband Dominic, and her 17-yr old son Alex, 16-yr-old daughter Daisy, and 8-yr-old Benjy), six weeks after the death of their mother. Brother and sister haven't talked for years, and are trying to resolve that now. I guess it depends on one's definition of 'family'. To me, that word doesn't mean a thing without the building of experiences and shared history, and respect of the individual, freedom of space and choice. Being related by blood doesn't mean being obligated, having to do what your parents want forever. That's the worst feeling ever. If there isn't a bond between parent and child, then there isn't one. *shrug (Read reviews here, here, here and here.)

But make no mistake, while I didn't like the storyline, I didn't mind the writing, and how the reader's interest is kept by the shifting perspectives used. There isn't one main narrator; there're eight perspectives. Richard and Angela were described in a review by The Guardian as "adult children of emotionally damaged parents". Every adult carried their own baggage and skeletons. Throw angsty teenagers into the fray, and the book exploded into boiling cauldron of domestic drama, which in the end, rather logically, nothing gets resolved.

Ten minutes, says Alex, and Angela thinks how her brother is returning to a life which is so much more solid and purposeful than the lives which await them. The hospital, the apartment on Moray Place. 

Richard pours himself a coffee and stands sipping. He had expected something to be resolved or mended or rediscovered over the last few days. He wants to say to Angela that she and Dominic should visit Edinburgh sometime but he finds it hard to sound enthusiastic, so he says it to Alex instead. Good hills for running and biking. It won't happen, of course. This makes him sadder than he expected.