The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Mark Haddon (author)

Random House, UK: 2003; 268pp

ISBN: 0099456761

Genres: crime, mystery, realistic fiction

Issues: Aspergers, disability, boundaries, family, identity, independence, relationships, special needs

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Award, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this is a very finely crafted piece of writing. Although marketed as children's literature, conceptually this is definitely for older readers.

Christopher has a photographic memory and is a brilliant mathematician. He is going to do his A-levels (equivalent to Australia's Yr 12 exams) at age fifteen. When he's not doing maths, he reads the works of Stephen Hawking and other great scientists.

He intends to go to university and do a degree in Maths or Science. Or Maths and Science. These are things he understands. What he doesn't understand, can't understand, and finds terribly confusing and often frightening are other human beings.

Christopher has Asperger's Syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder. Exceptionally intellectually gifted, his interactions with the world and people around him are made difficult - for them and for him - by his very limited ability to comprehend human emotions. He attends a Special School where teachers who understand these limitations help him develop strategies to live in the same world as everybody else.

The ‘real world' becomes more incomprehensible when he finds his neighbour's dog lying dead on the lawn. Christopher liked the dog and decides to investigate its murder and write a book about how he does this. Life is not as predictable as mathematics, however, and Christopher soon uncovers some disturbing facts that shatter the precarious balance of his world.

First person narrative is often a lazy choice on the part of the author - it excuses a limited narrative view, superficial characterisations and leaps of logic. Here, however, it has been used in a very skilful, controlled and purposeful manner, taking the reader inside the head of a person who thinks completely differently to most human beings. Christopher's narrative voice is very strong and idiosyncratic, allowing the reader to see the world as he sees it - even to his opinions on what he regards as the irrational thinking of others, especially when it comes to emotions. His reactions to situations are perfectly logical from his world view - but completely alien to most readers.

The fact that Haddon is able to explore the nature of all boundaries - personal, social, familial - not just Christopher's own, is demonstrative of his skill as a writer. This novel is an outstanding investigation and expression of the conflicts that beset parents of gifted children with learning difficulties (not just Asperger's), especially their love of and concern for their child's personal and educational welfare versus their own needs. The detail and completeness of the narrative perspective is extraordinary and demands intense reader involvement. More than anything else, the novel examines the concept of choice. What can we do if we think we have no choice? Can we step outside our comfort zone - the boundaries that usually keep us emotionally and physically safe - and do the apparently dangerous in order to find security?

Brilliant, absorbing and incredibly moving, this is a must-read novel.