Book #5: Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva
Number of pages: 318
Although it isn't Christmas, I couldn't wait until December to read this fictionalised account of how Charles Dickens wrote one of his most famous books, A Christmas Carol.
At the start of the novel, Charles Dickens' most recent book, Martin Chuzzlewit has proved to be a complete flop, and Dickens is given an assignment to write a book about Christmas, or his debts will be called in. A lot of the trouble seems to stem from the fact that Dickens has writers' block and needs a woman to act as his new creative muse.
I loved how this book provided a good mixture of drama and humour, with a lot of (sometimes quite subtle) allusions to A Christmas Carol and other Dickens titles (for example, when offered a humbug, he replies "Humbug? Bah!"). Dickens is portrayed as having some sort of "mind bank" where the stores the names of people he's met and uses their names in his books, often (it seems) as a way of getting revenge. Jacob Marley is introduced as a man who asked for Dickens' autograph and then throws it away saying he'd mistaken Dickens for William Makepeace Thackeray.
I also loved how the book showed Dickens interacting with other famous authors from the same period, which provided a lot of the humour (Thackeray seems to be portrayed as a massive narcissist).
I enjoyed this book a lot, and I liked the way that Dickens was written, and his relationship with the other characters, particularly his estranged father (I have no idea if this has any basis in reality), and a young mother he strikes up a friendship with. There is a plot twist towards the end that is both bittersweet and quite dark at the same time; I'd guessed it would happen several chapters before, but it didn't detract from the fact that the book is very well written.
Next book: Parting Shot (Linwood Barclay)