books: 9 down, 15 to go: the dead fathers club

The Dead Fathers Club (Matt Haig of The Guardian) is a retelling of Hamlet, where the protagonist is a 11-year-old boy named Philip Noble whose recently deceased father appears to him as a ghost, claims that Philip's Uncle Alan killed him to usurp his position of "king of the CASTLE," and demands that Philip kill his uncle so that his death is avenged, he can avoid "The Terrors," and move on to the afterlife. The novel is macabre, funny, poignant, and (to me, anyway) unputdownable. At times, it reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as well as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which are two other books that I also enjoyed more than a little bit. But please don't think that all the comparisons mean that Haig's writing style is unoriginal. I didn't feel that way at all. I loved this book both for its highly engaging story as well as the fact that Haig has a simple, beautiful way with words that would often give me pause. I highly recommend it, and although I suppose it's technically a young adult book I see how it really would appeal to most anyone. Unless, that is, you are a person who is terribly sensitive to correct punctuation usage since Haig, like my freshmen, simply cannot be bothered most of the time.

To conclude, here is a passage from The Dead Fathers Club that I was particularly found of. Enjoy.

I woke up and it was still dark. There was sound of a train far away and it was like the world was doing a sigh. Sometimes when you wake up you are in a different time like you have gone in a time machine and the time I was in was before Dad died.

Everything was normal and Dad was in bed with Mum in the next room sleeping with his arm flopped over her and I was thinking about going to see Derby with him on Saturday. It was going to be good and my thinking was getting faster and less sleepy and pushing me through time until I was in this morning.

Then I knew Dad wasnt in the next room and he was not taking me to the Football and when I remembered a heavy feeling came into my brain.

In the future there will probably be scales that can weigh how heavy memories are and it will be like when Mum and Renuka went to Weightwatchers. People or special doctors and Brainwatchers will say This memory is very heavy you need to lose weight in your brain.

Then they will tell you to exercise your brain in the right way to make it lighter.

My brain was so heavy this morning I didn't think I would be able to get it off the pillow without shaking out some of the pictures in my head of Dad. Like the picture of him when he flicked water on me and Mum when he was in the swimming book in Rhodes and we were dry on the sunbeds...or the heaviest picture of all which was when we went to Sconce Hills in the snow and his face was red and cold but his hands were warm in his woolly pattern gloves and I was still little enough not to be scared of holding his hand and he was dragging the sledge.

He was looking down at me and his words made clouds in the air and snowflakes turned into rain on his nose and his words said Come on Ill race you to the top... And then when we were at the top we both crunched onto the snow on our backs and laughed clouds up to the sky and I sat on my elbows and looked at him lying in the snow and felt the most happy ever but then I cant remember anything else because the picture is snow and melts in my brain.

Up Next: Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill