In the prose style of your novel, as well as in its concern for the inner reflections of a troubled youth, some readers may catch echoes of Burgess and Sillitoe. Apart, obviously, from Shakespeare, whom do you look upon as the major literary influences on this book? Matt Haig is a writer for children and adults who is adept at digging into the human heart.”― Sunday Times (London) 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. How did you come to this particular ending for the book?

Oh my word guys. This book is ASTOUNDING. I wasn’t expecting too much from the blurb but the blurb seriously underplays the book. It’s all written from the perspective of Philip and the formatting style reflects this - it’s as if you’re reading words that Philip himself has actually written. This gives off a massive feeling of unreliability within the narrator - and that sets the tone for the entire novel. A. I’m not too precious. As someone who plays fast and loose with the Shakespearian canon, it would be a bit hypocritical of me if I stopped other people interpreting my own work in a different way to how I envisaged. And David Heyman, the film producer who has optioned The Dead Fathers Club, has a lot of great ideas of how he sees the film, so I’m happy to leave it in his capable hands. Carol Suzzane Noble– Mother of Phillip, Carol marries Alan and is unaware of the presence of Brian’s ghost. Phillip cares a lot for his mother, who is one of his only last sources of comfort.Haig cleverly reinvents this 400-year-old tragedy as a 21st-century morality tale inhabited by schoolchildren, barmaids and mechanics, and it’s fun to look for the parallels between the two works. . . The story’s greatest strength, however, is Philip’s perspective as narrator. Haig effectively runs Philip’s words and thoughts together with an economy of punctuation, spliced with details that a child would notice, to create the voice of an anxious child. . . The Dead Father’s Club has much to recommend it, especially in how it shows the adult world through the eyes of an innocent. . . . It’s still the dark tale of Hamlet, perhaps more disturbing because it is related by an adolescent. It’s ingenious. Susan Kelly, USA Today 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 Magazine

Phillip eventually tries to murder Alan using the chemicals, but he is forced to abandon his first two attempts. In the third attempt, which involves setting fire to his uncle's car garage, Phillip accidentally causes the death of Leah's father. Phillip's conscience eventually leads him to attempt to confess the arson to Leah, who is depressed and slightly delusional at this point. When attempting to confess, Phillip sees the ghost of Leah's father, who attempts to pressure Phillip and make him feel guilty for his acts. Phillip then attempts to confess to Leah's brother Dane, who pulls a knife on Phillip but does not hurt him and instead tells Phillip not to tell Leah about the arson. One of the greatest challenges a writer faces is to sustain a narrative voice that differs from his or her own natural mode of expression. How were you able to think your way so successfully into the mind and diction of an eleven-year-old boy? Leah later goes missing and Phillip seeks the assistance of other ghosts to find her. Leah is discovered as she is preparing to jump off a bridge, the words "dead and gone" written on her arms in blood. Despite Phillip’s pleas, she jumps and Phillip jumps in after her in an attempt to rescue her. The pair are swept along the water, but are pulled out by Alan and one of his coworkers. A. Anxiety is my main influence. I think, really, anxiety is the key mood at the beginning of the twenty-first century, so being a naturally anxious person helps capture that kind of feeling. Shakespeare is my most obvious literary influence, I suppose.

Beyond the Book

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 out, was no accident at all. Uncle Alan is responsible for his dad's death, and if Philip doesn't succeed in killing his uncle just before his dad's birthday, just 10 weeks away, his dad's spirit will never rest. But Phillip gets distracted by a girl, Leah, and some bullies in his classroom, and in the end, even by some diazepam pills prescribed by his doctor after a few unfortunate attempts to follow his father's ghost's instructions. Alan Peter Noble– Alan, the antagonist, has supposedly killed his brother, Brian, by dismantling his brakes on his car. According to Brian’s ghost, he is only out to steal Phillip’s mother and take the pub for himself. What is the most useful way to understand the spirit that we come to know as Philip’s father’s ghost? Should he be thought of as a character, as an embodiment of Philip’s anxieties, as a demonic presence, or as something else? Why does Philip trust him for so long? This is meant to be a modern take on Hamlet from my understanding, and maybe my issue is that I just don't enjoy retellings. I couldn't really get the plot with this one; are ghosts actually real in this world or was Phillip just lost in the throes of grief. He's meant to be 11 but his POV just reads as a lot younger. Did Alan kill his father? Who the hell knows, it's never made clear and by the end of the book Alan is in deep water himself (pun intended).

My intention was to write a story that connects with people emotionally and hopefully that connection works the same with or without an in-depth knowledge of Hamlet. After all, Shakespeare himself was the king of rewrites, and Hamlet itself echoes earlier vengeance stories. It’s shortly after this that the ghost of Philip’s father comes to him and says that his brother, Alan, murdered him by severing the brakes on his car. Along with this news, a few other things: A ghost story with a twist—a suspenseful and poignantly funny update of the Hamlet story. Eleven-year-old Philip Noble has a big problem: His dad, who was killed in a car accident, appears as a bloodstained ghost at his own funeral and introduces Philip to the Dead Fathers Club. The club, whose members were all murdered, gathers outside the Castle and Falcon, the local pub that Philip’s family owns and lives above. Philip’s father tells him that Uncle Alan killed him and he must avenge his death. When Philip realizes that Uncle Alan has designs on his mom and the family pub, Philip decides that something must be done. But it’s a much bigger job than he anticipated, especially when he is caught up by the usual distractions of childhood—a pretty girl, wayward friends, school bullies, and his own self-doubt. The Dead Fathers Club is a riveting, imaginative, and quirky update of Shakespeare’s great tragedy that will establish Matt Haig as a young writer of great talent and imagination. The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig – eBook DetailsPhilip takes a surprising interest in Roman history, especially in the reign of Nero. How does this interest relate to Philip’s overall mental state, and how is it woven into the novel’s plot? But the ultimate clincher was that the narrator was very unreliable. I dislike these types of plots (A Beautiful Mind, Secret Window) because the writer spends so much time setting up support for the main premise and then screams "Fooled ya!"

Tempering the tragedy with a deftly comic touch, Haig combines a compelling mixture of psychological insight and pre-adolescent angst in this strikingly original tale. The Big Issue

Wisely I think, the author sustains the bizarre events by throwing in a fair bit of humour across much of the story. The protagonist, Philip Noble, is a few years younger than the Hamlet of the original tale, allowing the author to present the story through the eyes of a confused child. However, the mood can’t be maintained in the last quarter, when things get a lot darker and there is a distinct tension with the earlier section of the book. Actually at this point I wondered whether I was going to write a review saying the book hadn’t succeeded for me, but it was saved by its ending, which gives the reader something to think about. Q. What sort of research into child psychology did you do in preparation for writing this novel? Have you ever experienced any form of mental illness? A. I’ve got a children’s book, Shadow Forest, due out next year. It’s a fantasy book but in the Dahl rather than the Tolkien sense. I’m also working on another adult novel. His girlfriend Leah is the only one who doesn't think he's a weirdo - until, of course, Phillip does something unspeakable to her father. What follows next is a potential recipe for tragedy - though with a rather different ending to the Shakespearean text (I won't give it away). the book leads to a conclusion as tumultuous and powerful as Hamlet’s. While that might sound like exaggerated praise, it’s remarkable how Haig transforms the melancholic prince into a kid, the Danish court into a blue-collar inn and a schoolyard full of brats, the prince’s failed romance into a nearly asexual friendship with all the force of love. Genre fans should also be satisfied, for there’s more of the supernatural here than in the original: multiple ghosts from various eras, trapped in horrors not quite as absolute as fate. Faren Miller, Locus Magazine