An Updated Hamlet

One of the advantages of working in a school is the opportunity to pick up items cast off by students.  One such item was a 2006 novel entitled The Dead Fathers Club.  I had never heard of it before, but when I read that it was an "update of Hamlet" I could not resist.  Written in the speaking style of its eleven-year-old protagonist, it is a very quick read for its 300+ pages.

The story is a familiar one.  A young boy, Philip Noble, is visited by the ghost of his recently deceased father.  The ghost tells Philip that his death was not accidental, and he names his own brother, Alan, as the culprit.  The ghost urges Philip to kill his uncle Alan in order to save the ghost from "The Terrors."

Many Hamlet allusions creep into the work.  In an early scene, characters are described as smoking "Hamlet cigars."  Philip's mother is not named Gertrude, but his angelfish is.  Two of Philip's friends, twins as it turns out, are named Ross and Gary.  An associate of Philip's uncle Alan, a Mr. Fairview, spends his time spouting aphorisms (of the religious variety in this case).  He has two children, a son named Dane and a daughter named Leah, who becomes a special interest of young Philip.  In an attempt to gauge Alan's guilt, Philip heads to the video store to pick up a DVD copy of The Murder of Gonzago, starring, among others, "Academy Award winner Mel Gibson."  At one point in the story, Philip thinks of killing Alan while Alan is kneeling to install a PlayStation (or is it PrayStation?), but he decides against committing the act right then.  The original version of Hamlet even appears in a trivia night question at the family's pub.

Numerous bits of dialogues from Hamlet make it into the story.  A selection:

• "words, words, words"
• "smiling damned villain"
• "fishmonger"
• "To be or not to be"

Not to give away too much of the action of the story, I will say that many of the expected Hamlet plot elements do occur, albeit in novel ways.  The ending does not, however, result in a sword fight.  It still manages to grip the reader, long after the final word has been read.  The book is exceedingly entertaining, even more so for the Hamlet fan searching for the similarities.  It is a great example of how Shakespeare's play manages to fit a modern context to bring the story to another generation of readers.