false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172011884m/132556.jpg 132556 8 The story of <i>Hamlet</i> is not usually thought of as one meant for laughter. But Matt Haig's able retelling of the tale in <i>The Dead Fathers Club</i> will make you laugh, though it might also evoke a tear. Eleven-year-old Philip Noble is at his father's funeral when who should appear but his father's ghost, who wastes no time in telling Philip that his Uncle Alan, an auto mechanic, tampered with his car, causing the accident that killed him. He warns Philip that Uncle Alan will shortly be tampering with his mother too, because Unctuous Uncle Alan wants the pub that Philip's father owned. <p> The solution to this problem, according to Philip's dad, is that he must kill Uncle Alan. If he doesn't do it before Dad's next birthday, 11 weeks away, Dad will be consigned to the Terrors for all eternity. Philip agrees, in principle, but killing someone, especially without getting caught, isn't easy. But a promise is a promise, so Philip gives it a whirl, in fact, several whirls. Real life interferes in the persons of two school bullies, truly nasty and perverse thugs, who seem ready to kill Philip because they think it's funny that his father died. Philip also falls in love, and his Ophelia (named Leah) thinks that shoplifting is tons of fun. Poor Philip is in over his head in every way possible. There are many encounters with other Dead Fathers in a great sendup of ghostly dealings, <i>Hamlet</i>-like, on the moors, and several sly references to the play. There is even a character named Dane. The ending is not pure Shakespeare, but it is pure Haig and that is very good indeed. <I>--Valerie Ryan</I> 647711 2006 The Dead Fathers Club total:459|5:37|4:155|3:188|2:62|1:17| 459 1510 674 147 3 3 false false Wed May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat May 10 13:48:21 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 15:54:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 02 04:43:28 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 02 04:50:10 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Mar 24 12:56:50 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 26 14:01:22 -0700 2008
It begins with the death of Phillips father, shortly followed by the appearance of his ghost saying that Phillip's uncle killed his f...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 13:52:42 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 13:54:07 -0700 2008 Hamlet. The story opens when Philip, the Hamlet-narrator, sees his father's ghost after the funeral. His father's ghost informs him that he was murdered by Uncle Alan, an...more...]]> 2 1 true false Mon Jan 29 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Jan 29 09:48:55 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 29 09:56:34 -0800 2008
That is to say there is a narrator with a distinctive, childlike voice, simple way of observing. And there's a mystery. It's patterned after Hamlet and just made me w...more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 01 21:52:26 -0700 2007 Tue Jan 15 11:34:56 -0800 2008 Hamlet set in modern day England, with a young boy as the protagonist. The whole thing is told in the first person in prose reminiscent of the first chapter of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—run-on sentences and a blatant disregard for apostrophes. I found this both effec...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Sep 28 09:16:50 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 11:31:54 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 11:31:54 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 07 07:00:33 -0700 2007 Mon Nov 26 06:39:04 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jan 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 18:56:13 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 19:00:53 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Aug 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 12:02:46 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 12:16:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 true false Tue Aug 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 17:19:55 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 17:34:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 29 20:08:54 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 29 20:09:17 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jul 27 07:35:09 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 07:35:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 29 21:53:17 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 21:24:47 -0700 2009 6 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's Summary
Eleven-year-old Philip Noble has a big problem. His dad has appeared to him as a member of the Dead Fathers Club, a club for "ghost dads" whose murders are unavenged. His father's road accident, it turns ou...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 16:16:11 -0700 2009 Sun May 10 10:55:54 -0700 2009
For whatever reason, I willingly suspended all disbelief about the authenticity of the 11-year-old voice, and go along for the ride. I thin...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Mar 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 01 21:43:31 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 11 17:36:01 -0700 2009
If you've read Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime, or better yet, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, do yourself a favor and pass this over. Extremely ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Sep 30 12:36:54 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 12:36:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 17:17:52 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 17:23:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 04:55:22 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 17:59:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 19:19:59 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 19:27:35 -0700 2009 Matt Haig casts Hamlet as an 11-year-old boy in The Dead Fathers Club. When the novel begins, Philip's father has just been killed in a car crash, and his ghost comes back to tell Philip a thing or two about ghosts and their need for revenge.

Hamlet's character, in Matt Haig's hands, ...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=132556