The Dead Fathers Club

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Philip seeks out Leah’s brother, Dane, telling him about the arson and his role in his father’s death. Phillip's father is still visible and still attempts to persuade Phillip to murder Alan, who chooses not to listen to his father. I looked out of the window at the Bottle Banks but he wasnt there and so I just sat on the end of my bed looking at my tropical fish. He tells Philip the story of Ray Goodwin, who was murdered and who told him how being a ghost works. In Haig’s imaginative, quirky update of “Hamlet,” 11-year-old Philip Noble is asked by his dad’s ghost to avenge his murder by Uncle Alan; but the boy realizes it’s a bigger job than he anticipated, especially when he is caught up by the usual distractions of childhood—girls, bullies, and his own self-doubt.

The Dead Fathers Club: Reading Guide - Matt Haig The Dead Fathers Club: Reading Guide - Matt Haig

Philip is a breathless storyteller who seldom stops for punctuation but whose honesty and innocence, which shine from every sentence, are utterly captivating and heartbreakingly poignant. Q. On the page, Philip’s narrative is a hyperactive, unpunctuated stream of consciousness; disorientating at first, but inevitably drawing the reader into Philip’s nightmarish world. Alan Peter Noble– Alan, the antagonist, has supposedly killed his brother, Brian, by dismantling his brakes on his car. The ghost asks Philip to get revenge by murdering Alan, telling the boy that he is now part of the “Dead Fathers Club,” whose membership is composed of fathers who died unnaturally and are awaiting revenge. USA Today wrote that the book "has much to recommend it", citing Phillip's narration as a high point of the book.most of all it allows Haig to indulge his innocently acute eye for detail and his delightfully weird imagination. So when producer Paul Ruben was pondering who should narrate a story told in the voice of an 11-year-old boy, he went for the real thing. Phillip is an unreliable narrator, but it isn't until close to the ending that you begin to wonder just how unreliable . Even though, as the author, you possess the ultimate power to “change the story,” you have chosen to give your novel an ending that many readers may not feel is an optimistic one. She clapped her hands and said in her Pulling Herself Together voice Well come on youve got to get up.

The Dead Fathers Club: FAQ - Matt Haig The Dead Fathers Club: FAQ - Matt Haig

In the end, he does not hurt Philip but makes Philip promise not to tell Leah anything, as he worries it will break her. As Philip looks on, motive is soon added to means and opportunity: Not only does Alan swiftly step in to take charge of Brian’s pub, but he also promptly proposes marriage to Philip’s mother. I got the Guppy out and let the water drip down like rain like tears and I said Its OK the nets gone. It was a few years ago when my long-term girlfriend’s mum was diagnosed with cancer and we took quite a bit of time off to be with her.

And then he said what I was thinking just at the same time as I was thinking it so at first I thought the voice was in my head and he said It was your uncle Alan.

The Dead Fathers Club By Matt Haig |The Works

And I saw Mum and she saw me but didnt see me properly and she went to the corner of the hall by the radiator and sat down in a ball and cried and shook her head in her hands and said No no no no no and everywhere round us looked the same but bigger and I wanted to go and tell her it was OK but that would have been a lie and so I just sat there and did nothing. The Dead Fathers Club follows the character of 11-year-old Phillip as he is visited by his father Brian's ghost. Many of Haig’s characters, including Uncle Alan (Claudius), Philip’s mother (Gertrude), Leah (Ophelia), and Ross and Gary (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) have clear parallels in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.I am 11 so I am not a little bairn and I am not a man but I didnt say anything I just nodded my head a bit and Carla came and gave me a glass of Pepsi. Novels like A Clockwork Orange and even The God of Small Things influenced my approach to creating the right language, aiming to give words the freedom and flexibility of thought. The only castle in sight is not Elsinore, but the Castle and Falcon pub, owned and operated by Brian Noble until the suspicious car accident that claimed his life.