THE RED HOUSE

Mark Haddon’s new book follows eight family members—none of whom like one another much—on a week-long vacation in the English countryside. Maxwell Caulfield takes on the challenge of narrating this novel, with its shifting points of view. Caulfield does not significantly differentiate the voices of the different characters, which makes for a challenging listening experience as it’s not always immediately clear from Haddon’s text which characters are part of any given conversation. Even though Caulfield’s narration is strong otherwise, Haddon’s characters are basically unlikable. In addition to being a story that many listeners will find off-putting, THE RED HOUSE simply does not translate well to audio. J.K.L. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2012]