‘But with great attachment comes the pain of great loss…’
I absolutely adore A Christmas Carol. I’ve seen numerous versions across film, TV and stage. I’ve read and re-read the book many times. Even teaching it to various cohorts of reluctant teenagers hasn’t dimmed my enthusiasm for all things Scrooge. It’s no coincidence that Charles Dickens’ classic novella is the single most adapted story ever published (cinematically, at least). It’s because it is genuinely brilliant. To take the most famous Christmas tale and attempt to add to the lore around it feels misguided at best and downright blasphemous at worst. Luckily, novelist Vanessa Lafaye has such a reverence for the source material, such an appreciation for what made it so beloved in the first place, that her A Christmas Carol adjacent novel is a wonderful entry into the Scroogiverse.
As with seemingly every child from Victorian literature, Jake and Clara Marley are orphans. Sickly orphans at that. When a moment of serendipity changes their lives for ever, Jake vows never to allow the pair to return to poverty. And just like that, we have a prequel to A Christmas Carol.
The Jake is, of course, Jacob Marley, and here we have a kind of origin story for the man who would famously go on to be accused of being an undigested bit of beef by his future business partner Ebenezer Scrooge. Here, we find out what made Marley this way, and a little bit about what made Scrooge into the man he became too, all through the eyes of Clara, Jacob’s sweet and vulnerable younger sister.
Lafaye makes the wise decision to not even attempt to mimic Dickens’ incredible prose, instead adopting a simple but affecting writing style that will appeal to audience members of any age. The nods to the original novel range from being subtle to perhaps a little too on the nose, but crucially, Lafaye captures the spirit and the feel of the original in a way that always feels more like a homage than a rip off.
Miss Marley extends the world of A Christmas Carol in a way that will delight fans of the original story – pretty much everyone then – and is made even more poignant by the sad fact that Lafaye died before the novella could be finished. Her friend and fellow author Rebecca Mascull did finish the work, and the world should be glad she did. An undemanding but rewarding work.