The Dead Fathers Club
by Matt Haig
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Book Summary Information
Author: Matt HaigEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-12-18
ISBN: 0143112945
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Dead Fathers Club
Book Review: Do The Dead Lie?
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a great read from Matt Haig. Loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, the story follows 11 year old Phillip Noble who's lost his father in an automobile accident. Soon after, his father appears to him as a ghost, revealing that he was murdered by his brother and tells Phillip to avenge his death. The story proves to be much more complicated than that as Phillip must discover the difference between what is the truth and what is a lie, all while dealing with his crush on a teacher, the two bullies who harass him, a girl who likes him, and his uncle who slowly becomes part of he and his mother's life, all while trying to live up to the demands his father's ghost is making of him.
Haig's mythology of the Dead Father's Club is superb and the novel unfolds quickly, as most of the chapters are very short. The narrative style took some getting used to, as it's written entirely from the viewpoint of Phillip. The lack of some punctuation and quotation marks around the dialog was a little disconcerting at first, but the deeper I got into the book, the less I noticed it. Haig's descriptions are all very excellent and realistic from his narrator's point of view.
Haig took the story in directions I hadn't expected, which made the novel all the more compelling to me. The book plays with the notion of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imagined in a very clever and interesting way. It's also about how life continues unabated in the aftermath of a tragedy. I thought Haig handled this particularly well. The ending took me completely by surprise, which is rare. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.
Summary of The Dead Fathers Club
A ghost story with a twist?a suspenseful and poignantly funny update of HamletA triumph of originality and humor, this clever novel by British author Matt Haig gives us Hamlet redux with an unforgettable voice all his own. When eleven-year-old Philip Noble is confronted by the ghost of his recently deceased father and asked to avenge his death, the boy finds himself in a thorny dilemma. Revenge, after all, is a tricky business?especially when Philip is already distracted by his girlfriend, school bullies, self-doubt, and all the other challenges of adolescence. Viewing the adult world through the eyes of a young boy, The Dead Fathers Club is a brilliant, quirky take on a classic tale.
The story of Hamlet is not usually thought of as one meant for laughter. But Matt Haig's able retelling of the tale in The Dead Fathers Club will make you laugh, though it might also evoke a tear. Eleven-year-old Philip Noble is at his father's funeral when who should appear but his father's ghost, who wastes no time in telling Philip that his Uncle Alan, an auto mechanic, tampered with his car, causing the accident that killed him. He warns Philip that Uncle Alan will shortly be tampering with his mother too, because Unctuous Uncle Alan wants the pub that Philip's father owned.
The solution to this problem, according to Philip's dad, is that he must kill Uncle Alan. If he doesn't do it before Dad's next birthday, 11 weeks away, Dad will be consigned to the Terrors for all eternity. Philip agrees, in principle, but killing someone, especially without getting caught, isn't easy. But a promise is a promise, so Philip gives it a whirl, in fact, several whirls. Real life interferes in the persons of two school bullies, truly nasty and perverse thugs, who seem ready to kill Philip because they think it's funny that his father died. Philip also falls in love, and his Ophelia (named Leah) thinks that shoplifting is tons of fun. Poor Philip is in over his head in every way possible. There are many encounters with other Dead Fathers in a great sendup of ghostly dealings, Hamlet-like, on the moors, and several sly references to the play. There is even a character named Dane. The ending is not pure Shakespeare, but it is pure Haig and that is very good indeed. --Valerie Ryan
Ghosts Books
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