Title: Marley          

Author: Jon Clinch                  

Genre: Historical Fiction        

Publisher: Atria Books      

Format: Paperback

Pages: 304

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Synopsis (Goodreads):

“By some uncanny act of artistic appropriation, [Clinch] has, without imitating Dickens, entered into the phantasmagoric realm that is the great novelist’s quintessential territory…Startling and creative…Remarkable… Masterly.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the acclaimed author of Finn comes a masterful reimagining of Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol with this darkly entertaining exploration of the relationship between Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley.

“Marley was dead, to begin with,” Charles Dickens tells us at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. But in Jon Clinch’s ingenious novel, Jacob Marley, business partner to Ebenezer Scrooge, is very much alive: a rapacious and cunning boy who grows up to be a forger, a scoundrel, and the man who will be both the making and the undoing of Scrooge.

They meet as youths in the gloomy confines of Professor Drabb’s Academy for Boys, where Marley begins their twisted friendship by initiating the innocent Scrooge into the gentle art of extortion. Years later, in the dank heart of London, their shared ambition manifests itself in a fledgling shipping empire. Between Marley’s genius for deception and Scrooge’s brilliance with numbers, they amass a considerable fortune of dubious legality, all rooted in a pitiless commitment to the soon-to-be-outlawed slave trade.

As Marley toys with the affections of Scrooge’s sister, Fan, Scrooge falls under the spell of Fan’s best friend, Belle Fairchild. Now, for the first time, Scrooge and Marley find themselves at cross-purposes. With their business interests inextricably bound together and instincts for secrecy and greed bred in their very bones, the two men engage in a shadowy war of deception, false identities, forged documents, theft, and cold-blooded murder. Marley and Scrooge are destined to clash in an unforgettable reckoning that will echo into the future and set the stage for Marley’s ghostly return.

Meticulously crafted and beguilingly told, Marley revisits and illuminates one of Charles Dickens’s most cherished works to spellbinding effect.

Review:

Thank you to @simonschusterca for sending me a copy of Marley!

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The book takes place during the earlier years or Scrooge and Marley being business practices, and this version made me really want to go back and read a Christmas Carol, as there are some really interesting claims made in this book! It looks at the negative ways in which Scrooge and Marley got their start in business, how they met in boarding school, how Scrooge lost his change with the love of his life, Belle, and really just how things really went downhill! This book paints Marley as truly evil, and this version of events was really interesting! I know in a Christmas Carol how Scrooge was as an old man, but it’s cool to see him and Marley young and just starting out in business, and his nephew Fred when he was born! I’m curious what Charles Dickens would have thought if he read this book!! Overall an interesting story that you should read if you enjoy the story of a Christmas Carol!!

Happy reading!