The Dead Fathers Club: Matt Haig

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Matt Haig has an empathy for the human condition, the light and the dark of it, and he uses the full palette to build his excellent stories.”―NEIL GAIMAN So begins Philip's quest to avenge his dad and to save his mom from the greasy clutches of Uncle Alan, who seems intent on taking his dad's place in their lives. But Philip finds himself both uneasy with his mission and distrustful of the ghost that claims to be his father. Plus, he's distracted by Leah Polonius, the gorgeous daughter of Uncle Alan's Bible-thumping business partner. What's a young lad to do? The book is written in first person train of thought. Haig follows this trend to the letter. There is no punctuation save the period which is even sometimes avoided creating long run ons. AT first it is neat, then it is annoying, then tiresome, and then addictive and you find yourself copying it. I was wondering if he'd be able to pull it off for a whole book. He does. Haig is one of the most inspirational popular writers on mental health of our age.”― Independent (London) And then they went into the office and shut the door and I could hear nothing for ages and then I heard Mum. She was howling like a WOLF and the noise hurt my stomach and I closed my eyes to try and hear the policeman and all he was saying was Im sorry and he kept on saying it

At first I was completely weirded out by the almost non-existent grammar and punctuation in the book, but as the book was meant to have been written by an eleven-year-old boy I understood why the author chose to write it that way. Even so, it took some getting used to! Especially for someone like me, the Superintendent of the Grammar Police. stars rounded up. I love Matt Haig, I really do. This just isn't a favourite as far as his books are concerned. Actually I think it may have spoiled Hamlet for me a bit, which has always been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. It's a lot more visceral to have the story told you by an eleven year old boy who is struggling with his father's death, than a privileged and somewhat pampered twenty-something prince. It made me quite sad, which bizarrely Hamlet never has before. It's more likely to be something wrong with me...And this one especially, on, well, the nature of life itself: “I was thinking Mrs Fell was right. There are choices. You can listen to ghosts or you can not listen to ghosts and you can think what you want to think it is up to you because there are only two things that are true 100 out of 100 times and that is that you live and also that you die and every other thing is not true or false it is a mix. It is both. It is none.”

The book also has its amusing side, which is subtle. The characters are interesting and the description are original and precise. I like his attachment to his fish. And, in spite of, or rather more likely Because OF, the ending I feel the need to re-read the whole darn thing. The Dead Father's Club' is full of dark humour, Philip's thoughts on life are innocent and humorous, and his confusion about his Dad is heartbreaking, he is trying to cope with the loss of his Dad and his Dad's ghost at the same time.

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While I enjoyed Haig’s spin on the revenge tale, I actually found the most appealing part of the book to be Philip’s voice, especially the way he attempts to come to grip with the world around him. There are several gems throughout the book that might not be particularly insightful to adults, but which seem to perfectly capture the child’s evolving understanding of how the world works. Cleverly constructed narrative convinces the reader that this is a young child relating, explaining and describing both major and trivial incidents in his life. If you enjoyed The Sixth Sense you’ll find this book compulsive reading. It offers some pertinent observations about the human condition . . . be prepared for a highly dramatic conclusion. Its closest comparison is probably something like Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book written for adults but which I know is taught in some high schools. Like that book, The Dead Fathers club features a young narrator – 11-year-old Philip – who is precocious and insightful, but who probably lies somewhere on the autism spectrum. His narration is often an unfiltered stream-of-conscious jumble of sights, sounds, and impressions, such as this passage that comes early in the book when his mother receives news of his father’s death: The main character walks in on his mother and his uncle doing the jim jam (if you catch my drift) and it is described in horrific unsettling detail. Nothing I would want my kids to read.

This is the story of Phillip, an eleven-year-old boy whose father has just died in a car crash. Soon after, his Uncle Allan starts getting too close to Phillip's mother, just when Phillip's father's ghost starts appearing before him, telling him he must kill his uncle, as he was the one who killed him. His girlfriend Leah is the only one who doesn't think he's a weirdo - until, of course, Phillip does something unspeakable to her father. What follows next is a potential recipe for tragedy - though with a rather different ending to the Shakespearean text (I won't give it away). Q. There are no exact correspondences to Hamlet in The Dead Fathers Club. Philip has lost his father, and his uncle Alan has usurped his mother’s affections and the proprietorship of the ‘Castle’. However, without giving away the end of the novel, is it safe to say that Philip breaks free of Shakespeare’s narrative, and if so, why is this significant for you? In the chapter titled “Slaves,” Philip observes that true freedom is unattainable. He suggests that, so long as human beings remain in their bodies, they are subject to constraints that at times become almost intolerable. Do you have additional thoughts on the problem of human freedom, in your novel or elsewhere? Leah confides to Philip that she hates God. By contrast, her father, Mr. Fairview, has turned enthusiastically toward religion after the death of his wife. What commentary does The Dead Fathers Club offer regarding religion, and how does religion influence events and relationships in the novel?

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On the paradox of war and murder: “Its like how in War soldiers are told to kill other men and then they are Heroes but if they killed the same men when they were not in War they are Murderers. But they are still killing the same men who have the same dreams and who chew the same food and hum the same songs when they are happy but if it is called War it is all right because that is the rules of War.” We now owe another debt to Shakespeare, and one to Haig, for re-imagining a tragic masterpiece with such wit, force, and-yes-originality.” Again with most of my rereads I enjoyed the book more second time around. The story is based loosely on `Hamlet' by William Shakespeare with the main character Philip Noble faced with his Dad's ghost telling him that was not killed in a car accident but he was murdered by his brother and Philip's Uncle, Alan who according to his Dad's ghost tampered with the brakes of the car causing the accident. We are already on our second full shipment of this terrific novel and we’re getting such great responses from the early readers. Very highly recommended. Rakestraw Readers Recommend – the Best in New Books