The Dead Fathers Club: Matt Haig

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Leah later goes missing and Phillip seeks the assistance of other ghosts to find her. Leah is discovered as she is preparing to jump off a bridge, the words "dead and gone" written on her arms in blood. Despite Phillip’s pleas, she jumps and Phillip jumps in after her in an attempt to rescue her. The pair are swept along the water, but are pulled out by Alan and one of his coworkers. A. I think it is. He clearly can’t come to terms with the sudden absence of his father so he ends up over-compensating through the creation of a world that only he can see. Grief’s a bit like that, isn’t it? It’s like the ‘phantom limb’ amputees feel. Your mind takes a while to get used to a devastating new reality. Wisely I think, the author sustains the bizarre events by throwing in a fair bit of humour across much of the story. The protagonist, Philip Noble, is a few years younger than the Hamlet of the original tale, allowing the author to present the story through the eyes of a confused child. However, the mood can’t be maintained in the last quarter, when things get a lot darker and there is a distinct tension with the earlier section of the book. Actually at this point I wondered whether I was going to write a review saying the book hadn’t succeeded for me, but it was saved by its ending, which gives the reader something to think about.

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.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. Philip takes a surprising interest in Roman history, especially in the reign of Nero. How does this interest relate to Philip’s overall mental state, and how is it woven into the novel’s plot? In the prose style of your novel, as well as in its concern for the inner reflections of a troubled youth, some readers may catch echoes of Burgess and Sillitoe. Apart, obviously, from Shakespeare, whom do you look upon as the major literary influences on this book? 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: Literary influence is neatly reconfigured in the English author’s second novel (after The Last Family in England, 2005), in which an 11-year-old schoolboy is commanded to seek revenge by the ghost of his murdered father.

I selected this book because the idea and the voice interested me. The cover boast that it is kind of like a modern day Hamlet adn in a lot of ways it is. So here's what I LOVED about this book. We all know that Hamlet was the king of indecision, and that he may or may not have been mad. However, his state of mind is always a mystery, due to the perspective of the play. (The soliloquies, in my opinion, only reveal so much). Haig is one of the most inspirational popular writers on mental health of our age.”― Independent (London)

F. Scott Fitzgerald said when he wrote he felt like he was holding his breath and swimming under water. With The Dead Fathers Club it was certainly written at quite a breathless, intense level, and came from a place I can’t easily locate. But once I had the voice, it was there and I was able to see everything through Philip’s eyes. The problem was, how do you find someone? Acting prodigies aside, how do you find a kid who can deliver a 7-hour narration of a book based on a Shakespearean play? And, oh yes, Ruben is American and the boy had to be British. Lovers of Hamlet will savor The Dead Fathers Club. . .The Dead Fathers Club, at heart, is the wrenching story of a boy who can’t cope with his father’s death. He is 11 years old and powerless, not a prince with infinite charisma, and still the ghost keeps demanding that he show vindictive bravery. That Haig lets the problem overwhelm the boy so relentlessly gives the book its haunting power. . . The Hamlet-sized story doesn’t crush the innocent telling. In fact, in places, youth refreshes the older vision. . .in a climax in which Philip seems to overhear himself, he muses: “Dads are just men who have babies but I know he loved me because I felt it go out of me when he crashed. It was like air or blood or bones or something that made me me and it wasnt there any more and I had only half of it now and I didnt know if that was enough.” That last beautiful clause —“I didn’t know if that was enough”— achieves understanding while still preserving ambivalence. Its eloquence is hemmed tightly with doubt and fear. He is right: We never know if we have what it takes to make it through, and circumstances have forced him to learn this too young. It is irresistible to wonder if Haig chooses the protagonist’s age not only for its inherent vulnerability but also because another Hamlet–Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet — died at the age of 11. If so, “The Dead Fathers Club,” a tale of grief, holds a posthumous mirror up to the Bard, and offers him empathy. Todd Shy, News & Observer, Raleigh A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.