A life less ordinary

‘I know it sounds arrogant but I think it’s undeniable that it has become fixed in the culture like a stately home,’ says Mark Haddon of his book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Arrogant or not, he is probably right. Haddon’s novel about an autistic boy’s attempt to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbour’s dog has sold more than two and a half million copies since its publication in 2003 and seems to have been read by everyone.

As we chat in the basement of the Ashmolean Museum in his hometown of Oxford, Haddon doesn’t come across as an egomaniac. When he discusses Curious Incident he’s more like a proud parent marvelling at his child’s success. He takes particular delight in telling me that the book has been sold under the counter in Tehran and was banned from a number of American schools and libraries for ‘atheism and profanity’.

It’s no great surprise that where a publishing phenomenon leads, film and theatre companies follow, and in the past few years the 49-year-old has had plenty of offers for the rights to his breakthrough work. (Before writing Curious Incident he was a freelance illustrator, providing sketches for The Spectator, and then a prolific author of children’s books.) Mind-bogglingly, several requests were made for permission to do musical versions. ‘If there was a parallel universe we could have let a musical run and see what happened,’ says Haddon, lightly, but two adaptations have been given the go-ahead. Warner Bros is currently in the process of bringing Curious Incident to the big screen and the National Theatre has been given permission to adapt the book for the stage, with the production opening in the Cottesloe later this month.