Featured Reading Guide
Matt Haig
Meet the Hunter family: Adam, Kate, and their children Hal and Charlotte. And Prince, their black Labrador. -Prince is an earnest young dog, striving hard to live up to the tenets of the Labrador Pact (Remain Loyal to Your Human Masters, Serve and Protect Your Family at Any Cost). Other dogs, led by the Springer Spaniels, have revolted. Their slogans are ‘Dogs for Dogs, not for Humans’ and ‘Pleasure not Duty’. Mentored by an elderly Labrador called Henry, Prince takes his responsibilities seriously, and as things in the Hunter family begin to go badly awry – marital breakdown, rowdy teenage parties…
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Matt Haig was born in Sheffield in 1975 and grew up in Nottinghamshire. He has lived in London and Ibiza, where he worked for the Manumission club. He now lives in Leeds. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Independent, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Face.
topAbout the Book
Meet the Hunter family: Adam, Kate, and their children Hal and Charlotte. And Prince, their black Labrador. -Prince is an earnest young dog, striving hard to live up to the tenets of the Labrador Pact (Remain Loyal to Your Human Masters, Serve and Protect Your Family at Any Cost). Other dogs, led by the Springer Spaniels, have revolted. Their slogans are ‘Dogs for Dogs, not for Humans’ and ‘Pleasure not Duty’. Mentored by an elderly Labrador called Henry, Prince takes his responsibilities seriously, and as things in the Hunter family begin to go badly awry – marital breakdown, rowdy teenage parties, attempted suicide – his responsibilities threaten to overwhelm him. And down in the park it’s even worse: Henry has disappeared; Falstaff the Springer Spaniel wants to lead Prince astray; Joyce the Irish wolfhound has been murdered. In the end Prince is forced to break the Labrador Pact and take desperate action to save his Family.
topMatt Haig interview/review
Interview with Matt Haig, taken from the Daily Mail, 7th May 2005
‘My life has really swung between short-term pleasure and long-term duty. Between the person who just drinks all day and doesn’t think about anything, and the career/relationship-minded person who wants to keep all that in check. The book is about the battle with those two sides of myself.
As a rebellious teenager, I used to think that rules and obligations to society and family were essentially wrong and you should test everything before agreeing to do it, but I have changed. I now think that rules and order and duty are not only as liberating as anarchy, but, in fact, more so. If life is a glass of water, rules are the glass. Without the glass, you can’t drink the water. It keeps everything in place.
Society is now so pleasure-seeking that family life has become very fragile. I am trying to look at it as objectively as possible and observe how amazing it is that families stay together today. Most of my friends had single parents. My (happy) family was so rare that it felt a bit as if we were the last family in England. Hence my choice of title.
I wanted to write a story about family and family values, and I wanted to have a dog in it, originally only as a pet. But one night I watched a documentary about understanding your dog’s behaviour and I decided to turn it on its head and have a dog who would give his own guide to human behaviour, and who would be more insightful. Hence the narrator. I decided to make the dog as believable as possible, rather than a cutesy, cartoony dog, so that, if people bought a book told from a dog’s perspective, they had to believe everything about it.
A family isn’t complete without the pet dog. But, whereas, decades ago, dogs had the role of being a guard dog or ornamental, now they are almost like therapists. They are always there when you need them. You can stroke them and talk to them about your problems, and they are much better than humans at tolerating you prattling on and being self-obsessed. They help release tension. ‘
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Matt Haig uses the Labrador, Prince, as the narrator of the story. We see the idiosyncrasies of our world by viewing humans through the eyes of a dog. Does using a dog rather than a human narrator change the story-telling experience and our viewpoint towards the characters and issues in the novel?
- The constant struggle between our outward duty and our internal desires is seen in all the characters in the novel. Discuss this central conflict between family duty and selfish pleasure in the novel.
- Discuss the viewpoints put forth regarding family values in the novel.
- Prince’s mentor, the Labrador Henry, is a complex character. Discuss Henry and his purpose in the novel.
- Henry IV part I inspired the sub-plot of book. In Shakespeare’s play, Prince Hal is caught between following his duty as future King of England, as represented by his Father King Henry, and the world of mischief and hedonistic self-indulgence, represented by Sir Jack Falstaff. In the novel Prince
faces a similar predicament as he is caught between his duty to the family and the world of mischief that the Springer Spaniel Falstaff attempts to lead him into. Is the reworking of the play effective?
- The animals in the novel are seen to be generally superior to the humans. Compare the differences (and similarities) between humans and animals in the novel.
Other Books by Matt Haig
Shadow Forest
Samuel Blink is the hero of this story, but he doesn’t know it yet. Right now,…
The Dead Fathers Club
Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord father has died…
The Possession of Mr Cave
Terence Cave, intellectual, music-lover and owner of Cave Antiques, has exp…
The Runaway Troll
There s one thing every troll child dreads more than anything and that s …
Suggested Further Reading
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time ~ Mark Haddon (Vintage, 2004)
- Lorelei’s Secret ~ Carolyn Parkhurst (Sceptre, 2004)
- Henry IV Part I ~ William Shakespeare