The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

  

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

by Mark Haddon

Published 1988

The story starts with a dead dog, it was on the lawn of the narrator, Christopher Boone’s, neighbour.

Christopher has Asperger’s Syndrome and the story is told from his perspective.

As the events progress, we find out about Christopher and his neighbour, Mrs Shears, her husband and Christopher’s Mother and Father. We find out how Christopher’s behaviour has affected the lives of the two couples living opposite each other and how this has lead to the death of Wellington, the Shears dog.

It is well written and gives an insight into the way that Christopher reacts to situations, how he can get overwhelmed by them and how he behaves when this happens and how this affects those around him. There is no resolution, but then it isn’t important, life goes on, but differently. I think the importance of the book is that it has the narrator as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome and the story is told from his point of view and through his logic, not from the view of someone observing his actions, but not understanding them or realising that sometimes he just needs space to reduce the number of thoughts dashing round his head.