Death of the Hound of the Baskervilles

I just read a novel which is the third one of a type I have read in the last year or so, but I have no idea what to call this type of novel.  At the rate in which I am running into novels of this type, it is becoming a genre, and an decent genre needs a name, but where does the name for a genre get invented?  I have been trying to think of any example of this new nameless genre from an earlier age, but I can’t think of one, so perhaps it is a new genre.  But, then that realization got me wondering how a genre suddenly develops out of the blue; why would I suddenly stumble upon three books with a common characteristic nature?  Now interestingly, two of the books in my new found genre were recommended by students—one a former student, one a current student.  The only thing of which I can think that unites those two students is that they both took my Western Civilization Class—which is not a minor similarity.  The third book, the one I just read, I found at a library book sale a few weeks back, and since the title seemed like a title I kept seeing (though I have no idea if I actually have seen the title a lot or not), I picked it up (having absolutely no idea what it was about), and then when I was looking for a book to read a week or so ago, there it was, so I read it. 

The book?  Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

The Genre:  Child with some level of Social Dysfunction solves a not particularly Mysterious Mystery while discovering Deep Truths about Life.  (You can see why the Genre needs a better name)

The other two books in this new-found genre:

Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The copyright dates on those three books are 2003, 2005, 2006.  As I said, I can’t think of another book like these three in what makes them the same which was written before the last decade.

I’ve reviewed the other two books in my new-found genre here already.  So, what about Haddon’s book?  First off, the cover blurbs are a bit over-the-top—it isn’t even close to The Catcher in the Rye crossed with The Sound and the Fury (New York Times).

The shtick?  The narrator is an autistic child.  That is both the thing that makes the book something other than a complete waste of time, but also makes the book a little hard to take seriously.  I am no expert in autism, but I have a really hard time imagining the kid portrayed in this book actually writing this book.  The description of the way the autistic child acts and reacts is not what strikes me as unbelievable; what strikes me as unbelievable is that this narrator would actually sit down and write with such literary flair about how he had a hard time in social interactions.  There is thus a complete disconnect in the whole book which was vaguely annoying.  That aside, it was a decent enough book; it read quickly, and it was a moderately enjoyable way to pass the time.  But, I don’t think I would ever recommend it to anyone.  It is a classic example of the beach book—a painless read which won’t actually make you really think about anything, enough narrative punch to keep you going, and an interesting enough plot that you sort of wonder what will happen next.  Now that isn’t the sort of blurb that gets put on the cover of a book to sell copies, but if you do see a copy at a library book sale for 50 cents, and you want a light read which won’t cause your brain cells to die, it isn’t a bad purchase at all.