"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time"

   This is a very fascinating and unusual story of 15-year-old Christopher Boone, who is autistic.  He does not understand human emotion and can't stand crowds or being touched. He thrives on structure, order and predictability.  However, when he finds the neighbour's dog impaled on a garden fork, he is determined to find the killer.  It turns out to be his father.  Christopher discovers not only this terrible secret but a worse one- his father had told him that his mother had died, but she had actually left with the next door neighbour.  Christopher decides that he cannot live with his father anymore and attempts to catch trains and subways to London where his mother lives.
   Christopher is a brilliant mathematician and that part was beyond my understanding.
   I found this book fascinating because it was so unusual.  There were charts and graphs and pictures as Christopher tries to explain how he understands things.  What insight into an autistic person's life. 

Short and powerful story!

Since this is my second time reading this novel, I have questions of the author.

Mark Haddon

1.) How did you understand autism so well?
2.) Are you a mathematician?

My research shows that he is not autistic himself, although he has worked with disabled children.  He says that he only read one book about autism.
His major in college was literature.

This novel was published in two identical editions with different covers, one for adults and one for teenagers.  The author said, "To my continuing amazement, it seems to have spread round the world like some particularly infectious rash".