Johnny and the Dead

Johnny and the Dead

1994 Paperback (Corgi)
Author	Terry Pratchett
Original title	Johnny and the Dead
Cover artist	John Avon
Language	English
Series	Johnny Maxwell Trilogy
Genre	Juvenile Literature, Fantasy
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	1993
Publication place	UK
Media type	book
Pages	172
ISBN	0-385-40301-1
OCLC	28889741
Preceded by	Only You Can Save Mankind (1992)
Followed by	Johnny and the Bomb (1996)

Johnny and the Dead (1993) is the second novel by Terry Pratchett to feature the character Johnny Maxwell. The other novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Only You Can Save Mankind (1992) and Johnny and the Bomb (1996). In this story, Johnny sees and speaks with the spirits (they object to the term "ghost") of those interred in his local cemetery and tries to help them when their home is threatened.

Johnny and the Dead is a feature of some schools' English curriculum.

Plot summary

The story starts with Johnny going through the cemetery as a shortcut to reach his home,but Wobbler thinks it is spooky, but then there Johnny meets 'Alderman Thomas Bowler' (one of the dead). Johnny then realizes that he can see, talk and hear the dead. Later, Johnny then meets all the dead and then Johnny and the gang (including the dead) are discussing the council's sale of Blackbury's neglected cemetery to a faceless conglomerate who plan to build offices on it. Various dead citizens, led by a former town counciller, ask Johnny, the only person who can see them, to help stop it.

While Johnny, helped by his semi-believing friends, tries to find evidence of famous interees and speaks out at community meetings, the Dead begin to take an interest in the modern day, and realise they are not, as they believed, trapped in the cemetery.

By the end of the book the council is forced to back down, but the Dead no longer care because the day of judjement comes. However, the town's living residents have, thanks to the campaigning of Blackburry volentiers, rediscovered the cemetery as a link to their past. As one of the Dead puts it "The living must remember, and the dead must forget."

Ideas and themes

The book is loosely based on real events in Westminster in the 1980s, when the council sold three cemeteries as building land for 15p.

Part of the story deals with the last surviving member of the Blackbury pals, a Pals battalion with obvious parallel to the Accrington Pals. This gentleman is called Tommy Atkins, the name given to the generic British soldier of the day

A running joke in the book is that most of the Dead are "nearly famous", often being recognisable as very similar to a famous Briton. It is possible that Pratchett intends Blackbury Cemetery to be "nearly Highgate", especially as one of the most prominent ghosts (William Stickers) is described as "The man who would have invented communism if Karl Marx hadn't."

Adaptations

• The book was made into a TV serial for Children's ITV on ITV in 1995. It starred Andrew Falvey as Johnny, and featured Brian Blessed as William Stickers and George Baker as Alderman Bowler.
• It was also adapted as a play by Stephen Briggs.

Translations

• Johnny et les morts (French)
• Nur Du kannst sie verstehen (i.e. "Only You Can Understand Them", German)
• Johnny och döden (Swedish)
• Джонни и мертвецы (Russian)
• Johnny ve Ölüler (Turkish)
• Joni a'r Meirwon (Welsh)
• Johnny i zmarli (Polish)

External links

• Johnny and the Dead at IMDb