(Atria Books) When we meet Jacob Marley in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and yes, this is the selfsame man in Jon Clinch’s delectable new novel, he is a haggard specter, weighted down with heavy chains. It is his desire to save Scrooge from a similar fate that summons the apparitions to visit Ebeneezer Scrooge. In Dickens’ tale, we see snippets of what Scrooge’s life could have been; in Clinch’s tale, we get the entire backstory, and discover how the miserable miser came to be. It is, indeed, a dark yet liv … (read more)
