Matt Haig

Introduced to the Dead Fathers Club of murdered men by the ghost of his late father, eleven-year-old Philip Noble learns that his uncle, who has designs on Philip's mother, murdered Philip's father in order to get his hands on the family pub.

The Dead Fathers Club

Sarah Sammis

The Dead Father's Club by Matt Haig is written in diary form making it a very typical British young adult novel. All of these novels have a hook to set them apart; The Dead Fathers Club is a retelling of Hamlet.

To be Hamlet a story needs: a dead father, a lecherous uncle, a mother, and a depressed girl friend. Philip Noble, the eleven year old protagonist doesn't just have the icky fact that his uncle is now dating his mother, he also has the ghost of his father demanding revenge by his next birthday.

Fathers who are murdered, his dad's ghost explains, join the Dead Fathers Club. If their deaths are avenged before their next birthday they can move on to heaven. If not, they are forever doomed to suffer Terrors and stay ghosts forever. (p. 19) What Philip has to do is decide whether he wants to believe his father and take up the call for revenge or ignore him and let life go on regardless of whatever horrors might exist in the afterlife.

As The Dead Father's Club is a full length novel, and not a play, Philip has more time to think and it does give him longer moments of clarity over the Danish prince. His mother and uncle, also not constrained to the cliches of tragedy are more fully fleshed than the Bard's characters allowing more options in the narrative beyond the usual ending. That's not to say that everything ends rosily, there are unfortunate consequences to actions taken but I don't want to give anything away.

Like David Almond's The Savage, The Dead Fathers Club is written to reflect Philip's voice including a lack of sensible punctuation, strange capitilizations and words running together. It takes some getting used to before the story will start to flow. The familiarity of Hamlet makes the process easier.

Latitude Tamarind

Uhhhhhhh this book was written in a really weird style that is like “kids really talk and think that way” which is true but I don’t want to read a whole book like that

The audiobook was EXHAUSTING to read but it is read by a Real Child

Emily Mogg

A brilliant new novel from the acclaimed author of The Last Family in England. Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord-father has died in a road accident and his mother is succumbing to the greasy charms of her dead husband’s brother, Uncle Alan. The remaining certainties of Philip’s life crumble away when his father’s ghost appears in the pub and declares Uncle Alan murdered him. Arming himself with weapons from the school chemistry cupboard, Philip vows to carry out the ghost’s relentless demands for revenge. But will Leah, the gorgeous daughter of Uncle Alan’s God-fearing business partner, Mr. Fairview, prove too much of a distraction? And can the words of a ghost be trusted any more than the lies of the living? Philip makes his decision and when the moment comes to act, he finds himself hurtling towards disaster. Just as Matt Haig’s acclaimed and best-selling first novel, The Last Family in England, was a brilliant reworking of Henry IV Part I, with dogs in the major roles, so The Dead Fathers’ Club gives more than a nod to Hamlet. Hilariously funny, it is full of poignant insights into the strange workings of the world seen through the eyes of a child.

Guy Moorhouse

Sophie Koonin

Carol

FROM THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord father has died in a road accident, and his mother is succumbing to the greasy charms of her dead husband's brother, Uncle Alan. The remaining certainties of Philip's life crumble away when his father's ghost appears in the pub and declares Uncle Alan murdered him. Arming himself with weapons from the school chemistry cupboard, Philip vows to carry out the ghost's relentless demands for revenge. But can the words of a ghost be trusted any more than the lies of the living?

The Dead Fathers Club

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