The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon, 2003
★ 3.89 from 1.6m ratings on Goodreads
A fifteen-year-old who thinks in prime numbers and cannot read faces sets out to solve the death of a neighbour's dog, and finds his own family instead. The voice is plain and logical, the mystery moves steadily, and the family scenes carry a quiet tenderness.
Feels like curiosity, tenderness and unease. About family, society and identity.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy mysteries told in a flat, logical voice and stories about family seen from an unusual angle. Some readers have found the portrayal of autism or the book's execution less convincing than its premise.
Why read it
It gives you a puzzle plot and a tender look at a family trying to communicate, with a narrator whose way of seeing is the point.
A page from the book
How a father says I love you without touching his son.
I stepped outside. Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means that he loves me. What readers say
Readers found the book deeply moving and thought-provoking, appreciating the unique perspective of the protagonist. While many enjoyed the blend of mystery and humor, some expressed disappointment with the execution or the portrayal of autism.
Mark Haddon.Haddon worked as a carer for disabled adults in his twenties. The title comes from a line in the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze.
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy mysteries told in a flat, logical voice and stories about family seen from an unusual angle. Some readers have found the portrayal of autism or the book's execution less convincing than its premise.
- What is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time like?
- The voice is plain and logical, the mystery moves steadily, and the family scenes carry a quiet tenderness. Feels like curiosity, tenderness and unease. About family, society and identity.
- What should I read after The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?
- If you liked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, try The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger), Holes (Louis Sachar) and The Maid (Nita Prose).
A taste of the feed
The only job that feels worth doing, and why it can't be real.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye, and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.
The Catcher in the Rye · J. D. Salinger
A game of pretend that has outlived the age that invented it.
Stanley and his parents had tried to pretend that he was just going away to camp for a while, just like rich kids do. When Stanley was younger he used to play with stuffed animals, and pretend the animals were at camp. Camp Fun and Games he called it. Sometimes he’d have them play soccer with a marble. Other times they’d run an obstacle course, or go bungee jumping off a table, tied to broken rubber bands. Now Stanley tried to pretend he was going to Camp Fun and Games. Maybe he’ d make some friends, he thought. At least he’d get to swim in the lake.
Holes · Louis Sachar
What is lost when nothing is allowed to stand between wanting and having.
Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being. (The embryo is hungry; day in, day out, the blood-surrogate pump unceasingly turns its eight hundred revolutions a minute. The decanted infant howls; at once a nurse appears with a bottle of external secretion. Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.
Brave New World · Aldous Huxley
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