`Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark and everyone sailing under a different sky' Where do you go if you can't feel at home in your own family? When the people who made you can't fathom who you become? In these three tales of quarrelling clans and fraught reunions, Mark Haddon shows family in its frank, unsparing yet frequently absurd light, and, in doing so charts a stormy course into the crucible of the self. Selected from The Pier Falls, The Red House and A Spot of Bother.