The Dead Fathers Club: Matt Haig

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A. I wouldn’t say I was consciously trying to write a certain way, but yes, I do feel that a lot of writers underestimate teenage readers. Teenagers are among the best kind of readers, because they have the intelligence to understand big ideas, combined with that open-mindedness you tend to shed with age. The Dead Fathers Club is a 2006 novel by Matt Haig. The book was published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Viking Press. The story is a retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and thus an example of intertextuality. I'm going to keep this review short because I just generally don't have much to say about this book. It was odd and that is my general overall view of it; I literally cannot explain the experience of reading this book without using the word odd. There are no speech marks so everything just flows on and its hard to tell at times what is speech and what isn't.

Where Matt Haig’s debut novel, The Last Family in England, was a superb reworking of Henry IV, Part I, Dead Fathers Club gives a gracious nod towards Hamlet. . . Matt Haig – one of the freshest talents in the UK at the moment – triumphs again. Steph Little, Brighton Argus In his quixotic quest to avenge his father’s death, Phillip learns many life lessons: truth is relative, revenge is a big job and not painless, and love is worth fighting for. Haig’s novel is an unusual and often hilarious update of Hamlet … Julie, Book faves for Feb, Blue Willow Books, West Houston Lots of swearing, the "F" word repeatedly. Even uses the ultimate taboo "C" word about four times. Other less offensive baddies here too. Nothing I would want my kids to hear. 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 BooksQ. Unlike poor old Hamlet, Philip lives in an age when mental stability comes in little bottles. But the drugs really don’t work, do they? The story starts getting darker in the last chapters, as one could expect from a Hamlet re-telling, though there are a few changes towards the end that don't betray the spirit.

The conversation I would love to have with Matt Haig, author of The Dead Fathers Club.* We would be sitting in a small diner drinking our hot beverage of choice. Philip observes, “If you speak to yourself people think you are mad but if you write the same things they think you are clever.” Discuss examples from life or literature that bear out this observation on the nature of madness and intelligence. Funny, tragic (and very British), Matt Haig has written a delightful and poignant novel, told in the voice of an 11 year old boy who is trying to process the death of his father as he also endeavors to grow up. Full of surprising and intricate language as well as fascinating plot twists, this is a story for all types of readers. Karen Frank, Northshire Bookstore Vermont Despite this, I could gather from Philip's perspective, just how heartbreaking and confusing seeing the ghost of his dad was, after losing him tragically. I think seeing his ghost was a way of him dealing with the grief he had. Ot was also refreshing to see a child's viewpoint of adult situations, and what they must think or how it impacts them. A breathless see-saw between indecision and drama, between dark comedy and poignancy. Utterly compelling to its unpredictable climax, you won’t want to come up for air. Eve MagazineAs with a lot of Matt Haig's writing, he manages to lay bare human emotion, and put it into relateable sentences. We now owe another debt to Shakespeare, and one to Haig, for re-imagining a tragic masterpiece with such wit, force, and-yes-originality.” With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.

In theory, yes, the author has that ultimate power but with this novel the ending was the only one that fitted, and it dictated itself. It is bleak in some ways, but there is optimism there too. I hope. A. Not through research, so I guess it was personal experience. I grew up in Newark-on-Trent, and went to a school like Philip’s, so it was relatively easy to conjure that world. And as I was a rather anxious eleven-year-old I drew a lot from my own feelings from that time.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: PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Dead_Fathers_Club_-_Matt_Haig.pdf, The_Dead_Fathers_Club_-_Matt_Haig.epub A. No. It wasn’t my original intention. I experimented with various different ways of expressing Philip’s state of mind but this one somehow worked best. And thankfully, my editor didn’t have a problem with it.