The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig

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Philip Noble is 11. His dad has just perished in a car accident, and his uncle is acting a bit too friendly with Philip's newly widowed mom. To make matters worse, Philip's dad keeps making appearances (as a ghost), informing him of the truth about ghosts (they have all been murdered), and demanding that Philip avenge his death. However, the prescribed vengeance must be taken in "No Time," or his father's ghost will continue to suffer "the Terrors" and never find rest.

The Dead Fathers Club is a wholly unusual reworking of Shakespeare's Hamlet. But the Hamlet parallels -- complete with similar plot twists -- are worked in so deftly that the reader never quite anticipates where the book will go next. Readers see the world, surprising and strange, through Philip's eyes. It's a tangled web of murder and lies, with a boy caught in the middle, trying to make sense of it all. The result is a confused yet perceptive narrator whose responses to the world he inhabits are darkly humorous and sometimes tragic.

Haig's novel reads at a breathless pace (assisted by the absence of commas and apostrophes), his first-person narrative credibly that of a young British boy who takes things at face value. The result is a mysterious and engrossing book for both older children and adults -- neither of which will be able to put it down. (Spring 2007 Selection)

From the Publisher

A ghost story with a twist—a suspenseful and poignantly funny update of Hamlet

A 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.

Publishers Weekly

Something of a Hamlet for the 21st century, this audiobook presents Philip Noble, an 11-year-old boy whose father recently died in a car accident. But when his father returns as a ghost demanding revenge for his death, Philip must decide whether or not his Uncle Allan murdered his father. While grappling with the idea of murder, Philip must contend with all the typical stresses of adolescence including romance and bullys. HighBridge Audio's decision to cast 11-year-old Andrew Dennis to read this novel pays off. His youthful voice adds authenticity and his narrative skills fully envelope the first-person perspective of Philip. He also ably distinguishes additional characters. His most impressive feat is the level of emotion and intensity he maintains through many of the scenes. Several times, Haig repeats a word or phrase more than five times. In the text, this works because readers can skim, but listeners must hear each one. However, Dennis infuses different emphasis for each repeated word, making it work. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 13). (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Haig (The Last Family in England) creatively reanimates themes from Hamlet with an 11-year-old British protagonist who is commissioned to avenge his father's murder. After Philip Noble passes his hand through his father's flickering spirit at the funeral, Dad reveals the truth: it was conniving auto mechanic Uncle Alan who orchestrated the automobile "accident" that claimed his life, and Philip must kill Uncle Alan by dead Dad's next birthday-barely 11 weeks away-or he'll be consumed forever by the Terrors. Time is fleeting, however, as repugnant Uncle Alan has already begun to put the moves on Philip's mother and has taken over the family pub's operations. In animated, adolescent prose, Philip, goaded on by his father's ghost, plots his uncle's murder. Besides the time-sensitive obligation, Philip must also contend with the slings and arrows of adolescent life: friends, girls, meddling schoolteachers, bullies and peer pressure. The plucky hero impressively navigates the gloomy, pungent waters of retribution, death and guilt, and Haig does an enviable job of leavening a sad premise through the words and actions of a charming, resilient young man. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Phillip Noble's father is killed in a car accident, and suddenly Uncle Alan is hanging around Phillip's mother. It isn't long before the ghost of Phillip's dad appears and tells the 11 year old that the death was no accident. The ghost also tells Phillip about the dead fathers club, whose members are doomed to an eternity of terrors because their murders were never avenged. The only solution is for Phillip to murder his uncle before his father's next birthday. Unsure of what to do, Phillip rents a DVD, The Murder of Gonzago: A Brother's Murder, a Son's Revenge, to see how his uncle reacts. Haig (The Last Family in England) neatly sustains the Hamlet parallel, giving Phillip a girlfriend named Leah whose father is a bit meddlesome and revealing Phillip's uncertainty about whether to believe the ghost. Yet Phillip is no prince-in fact, he's a bumbling boy-and unlike Hamlet's father, this ghost hangs around quite a bit. What makes this work effective is that the narrative captures the anxiety of a timid boy, ridiculed by everyone, who must decide whether and how to kill his charismatic uncle. Hamlet never faced such difficulties. Recommended.-Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

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. "Dad's ghost" appears to Philip Noble, not on the battlements at Elsinore, but at the family-operated Castle and Falcon Pub, where mourners gather following his funeral. The spirit explains that his apparently accidental death in a car crash was in fact engineered by Philip's paternal Uncle Alan, an auto-dealer who has designs on Philip's now conveniently widowed Mum. Dad's ghost also explains the unhappy fellowship of the title group, whose members hover, unavenged and restless, between the dead and the living-while spurring the reluctant Philip to action, evoking from the boy reactions that astound his family, teachers and schoolmates, and even the forthright older girl (Leah), who matter-of-factly declares him her boyfriend. An act of violence (though not the one intended) ensues, and the embattled Philip-whose unpunctuated, edgy narration is an utter delight-even does some hasty growing up. Haig rather overworks the pattern of carefully spaced allusions to Hamlet (e.g., mischief-making tins Ross and Gary; pronouncing the wonderfully slimy Uncle Alan a "smiling damned villain"). But there are nice characterizations of Philip's Mum (so needing to be loved that she's blind to her brother-in-law's stratagems) and his sympathetic teacher Mrs. Fell, whose practiced niceness does not cloud her keen understanding of boyish bravado and secrecy. The author also makes effective use of the image of Hadrian's Wall (which occasions a class trip and essay subject) and to itsreputation as a barrier between civilization and savagery. As such, it also embodies Philip's quite credible vacillations between obedience and moral choice. We now owe another debt to Shakespeare, and one to Haig, for re-imagining a tragic masterpiece with such wit, force and-yes-originality.

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