상세정보

<한밤중에 개에게 일어난 의문의 사건>으로 17개 문학상을 수상한 마크 해던의 두 번째 장편소설. 작가는 평범한 듯하지만 알고 보면 누구보다 특별한, 말하지 않아도 그 존재만으로 위로와 힘이 되는 가족 이야기를 들려준다. 동성애, 재혼, 불륜 등 독특하면서도 무거운 이 코드를 가족이라는 틀 안에서 너무나 일상적인 요소들로 자연스럽게 풀어 나간다.

소설의 주인공은 네 명의 가족. 은퇴라는 인생의 큰 변화 속에서 죽음의 공포에 사로잡힌 남편 조지, 무미건조한 일상과 무뚝뚝한 남편에게서 벗어나 다른 남자와 로맨스를 즐기는 아내 진, 세상으로부터 자신을 보호하기 위해 보이지 않는 유리벽을 쌓고 지내는 동성애자 아들 제이미, 사랑보다는 안정을 택해 재혼하려는 딸 케이티. 이야기는 네 사람 각자의 시점으로 번갈아 전개된다.

은퇴 후의 삶을 준비하는 조지와 진 부부에게 런던에 사는 딸 케이티가 찾아온다. 딸은 재혼 소식을 전하지만, 이 사실을 달가워하는 사람은 없다. 마뜩찮은 분위기 속에 결혼 준비가 진행되면서, 가족 각자의 문제가 하나둘 수면 위로 떠오르는데…

The descent into madness of sixty-one-year-old George Hall goes largely unnoticed due to his family members' preoccupations with their own individual relationship crises.

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not at quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood, or manly bonhomie. He does not understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored.

At 61, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels and listening to a bit of light jazz. Then his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting re-married, to the deeply inappropriate Ray. Her family is not pleased – as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Katie can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband’s ex-colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.

The way these damaged people fall apart – and come together – as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

A SPOT OF BOTHER is Mark Haddon’s unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. Here the madness – literally – of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

정보제공 :