Mark Haddon

From the author of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" comes a novel about families and secrets

Two families. Seven days. One house.

Angela and her brother Richard have spent twenty years avoiding each other. Now, after the death of their mother, they bring their families together for a holiday in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours.

The Red House

1 Haus + 2 Familien = 100 Dramen


In den letzten 15 Jahren haben Angela und ihr Bruder Richard nur einen Nachmittag miteinander verbracht. Denn sie leben in unterschiedlichen Welten: er als erfolgreicher Radiologe in Edinburgh, sie als Lehrerin, die nicht nur ihre drei Kinder, sondern auch noch ihren Mann, einen Luftikus, ernähren muss. Doch jetzt, nach dem Tod ihrer Mutter, mietet Richard für eine Woche ein altes, rotes Herrenhaus in Herefordshire und lädt seine Schwester und deren Familie ein. Richard selbst kommt mit seiner zweiten Ehefrau und seiner Stieftochter Melissa, einer hübschen, selbstbewussten, permanent auf Flirt gepolten 15-Jährigen, die Angelas ältestem Sohn den Kopf verdreht. Und nicht nur ihm, sondern zur Verwirrung aller auch noch Angelas Tochter, die gerade erst zu einer religiösen Schwärmerin mutiert war.

Eine moderne Patchworkfamilie trifft auf eine Grossfamilie traditionellen Stils, Generation Facebook steht den Rockopas gegenüber. Das Ergebnis: Allenthalben lauern Abgründe, schwelen komische und ernste Konflikte - bis ein lang zurückreichendes Trauma, das Angelas gesamtes Familienleben überschattet hat, endlich aufbricht. Mark Haddon wurde 1962 in Northampton geboren, studierte am Merton College, Oxford, Literatur und lebt heute mit seiner Frau und seinen Kindern in Oxford. Für das Kinderprogramm der BBC hat Mark Haddon Drehbücher geschrieben, die ihm zweimal den begehrten BAFTA-Preis eintrugen. Mit dem Roman 'Supergute Tage' landete er auf Anhieb einen Weltbestseller und wurde in England mit dem renommierten Whitbread-Award ausgezeichnet. Auch sein zweiter Roman 'Der wunde Punkt' (2007) erschien im Blessing Verlag und war ein grosser internationaler Erfolg.

Das rote Haus

Sabine Delorme

Wer Mark Haddons “Das Rote Haus” aus großer Begeisterung für “The curious incident of the dog at night-time/Supergute Tage oder die sonderbare Welt des Christopher Boone” in die Hand nimmt, der sei ein wenig gewarnt. Dieses Buch ist deutlich anders.

Mir kam Mark Haddon hier vor wie einer, der üblicherweise mit Kapuzenpulli und Chucks durch die Gegend läuft und der sich nun unbedingt erwachsen geben will und sich mit einem nicht recht sitzenden Smoking verkleidet. Momentan ist es ja – insbesondere wie mir scheint – bei männlichen “mittelalten” Autoren recht en vogue im “stream of consciousness” zu schreiben, oft gefühlt, als würden sie damit ihre Seriosität erhöhen wollen. Auch Haddon übt sich im “Roten Haus” darin und lässt den Leser oft ratlos zwischen Gedankenströmen, Listen, Buchauszügen und fragmentierten Sätzen herumwandern.

Die ausführliche Rezension findet ihr hier: http://bingereader.org/2014/08/30/das...

Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark, and everyone sailing under a different sky.

After his mother's death, Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela's stillborn daughter.

"The Red House" is about the extraordinariness of the ordinary, weaving the words and thoughts of the eight characters together with those fainter, stranger voices - of books and letters and music, of the dead who once inhabited these rooms, of the ageing house itself and the landscape in which it sits.

Amanda Wells

I have loved Mark Haddon's work previously, but I was aware going in of the mixed reviews on this one. And yes I did find it hard to follow and connect with the characters - far more than A Spot Of Bother. When we finally got to some incidents of action I was convinced not to give up, and I understood the point of the book (more or less). 

But I have to say it was just really not as enjoyable as A Spot of Bother. Of course, if it had been written in the same way as that (clearly my favourite since I keep mentioning it), it probably would have come off as TOO similar. So I do understand the departure in terms of style. 

Nevertheless, if you want to choose a book of Haddon's to read, definitely go for A Spot of Bother or The Curious Incident before this one.

Libby

An dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family, from the author of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time"

Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Richard has just re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over.

But because of Haddon's extraordinary narrative technique, the stories of these eight people are anything but simple. Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character, "The Red House" becomes a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly-guarded secrets and illicit desires, all adding up to a portrait of contemporary family life that is bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt. As we come to know each character they become profoundly real to us. We understand them, even as we come to realize they will never fully understand each other, which is the tragicomedy of every family.

"The Red House" is a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of family in a profoundly empathetic manner—a novel sure to entrance the millions of readers of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".

Lisa

Zoe Kirkilis

Arun Seehra

O novo romance de Mark Haddon, «A Casa Vermelha», é a evocação magistral de uma família problemática que tenta reatar os laços que o tempo foi enfraquecendo. Richard, recém-casado em segundas núpcias, decide reaproximar-se da irmã, Angela, e convida-a, e à família, a passar uma semana de férias numa casa que alugou junto da fronteira galesa. Mas quando os oito elementos da família se reúnem na tranquila paisagem de campo, as inquietações, os segredos e as crises latentes de cada um deles irrompem com inesperada violência a superfície da normalidade. Uma abordagem única da vida familiar e das relações humanas.

A Casa Vermelha

Pedro Assis Cadavez

Sara Holman

Cindy Lieberman

Taylor Embrey

From Mark Haddon, the bestselling author of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", comes a dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family life.

Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Against the backdrop of a strange family gathering, Haddon skillfully weaves together the stories of eight very different people forced into close quarters. "The Red House" is a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly guarded secrets and illicit desires, painting a portrait of contemporary family life that is at once bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt.

The Red House

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