Hi. I'm Matt. Excuse me while I try and impress you with some of the praise for my novel, The Labrador Pact:
a comic tour de force The Times (UK)
it will go down as one of the great animal books Jeanette Winterson
a wry, serio-comic family tail, er, tale for our serio-comic times Molly Gloss, Washington Post
dark, comic and brilliantly adult New York Times
a winner from page one...a subtle dog's eye view of the frailty of human relations, it is perceptive and enchanting The Mail on Sunday
readers can't help feeling bad for Prince, a good dog trying to do the right thing Publishers Weekly
a cult hit... I only wish my dog had thought of it first Daily Mail (UK)
Extremely funny . . . the most enjoyable book you could read this year. . . Who'd enjoy this book? Firstly, dog lovers, who've probably always known that our four-footed friends are thinking, feeling, communicating beings. Secondly, anyone who enjoys the kind of book that hooks you so much you start reading at eight in the evening and finish the next morning at two (as I did with this). Thirdly, anyone who has ever seen, heard, ignored, played with or tripped over a dog. Now is that everyone? Martin Higgs, Waterstone's Literary Editor, Waterstone's Books Quarterly
Matt Haig is a novelist of great promise Daily Express
An incisive insight into contemporary life, somewhere between Watership Down and Animal Farm, that will make you think hard, as well as laugh Angela Levin, Weekend Magazine (Daily Mail)
so multi-faceted it could be re-read time and again . . . This is a remarkable book and a brilliantly entertaining read. The Big Issue
The Labrador Pact is published by Vintage in the UK (as The Last Family in England) where it became a bestseller and it has just been let off the lead by Penguin/Viking in the US. The film rights have been sold to Brad Pitt and the novel has now been translated into seven languages. I wrote it while suffering from panic disorder and I think the experience of actually writing and finishing a novel helped me overcome my panic attacks.
I'm also the author of The Dead Fathers Club. That's a ghost story, not a dog story. A sort-of-update of Hamlet which is out now in paperback in the UK and US. The film rights for that have gone to Heyday Productions. And in case you're still reading I've written a children's novel called Shadow Forest, which won a gold medal at the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2007.
To order The Labrador Pact from amazon.com click here and to order The Dead Fathers Club from amazon.com click here .
My favourite ancient philosopher is:
My favourite food is:
My first childhood crush was:
When I was 15 I got beaten up every Tuesday evening. Probably because I looked like this:
Other things: My favourite city is Rome. I believe the seas are going to rise and we're all going to drown. I like dogs. When I was ten I saw a ghost. Okay. That's it. Bye.
IN THE MEDIA:
Reviews for The Dead Fathers Club , Reviews for The Labrador Pact , Audio interview for The Dead Fathers Club , USA Today , The Guardian , Viking Reading Guide , BBC interview , Daily Mail interview , Wikipedia , Yorkshire Post interview , Nottingham Evening Post interview , Random House Reading Guide .
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