Cratchit and Company by Garrett Gilchrist

Bob Cratchit, a poor, underpaid clerk at the counting-house of Scrooge and Marley, has lost his youngest son. He is alone and freezing to death on a cold Christmas Eve, when he is visited by three spirits … Garrett Gilchrist brings you a new perspective on the classic characters from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.



This is a wonderful new take on the characters from A Christmas Carol that will satisfy those of you who love the original.

It’s never an easy thing to take another author’s characters and make them your own, but I think in this case it worked very well for Mr. Gilchrist. They retain their core, the way Dickens intended them to be, but the reader can also spy out slight tweakings that make them just different enough to be able to re-engage with their stories. It’s cleverly done.

The writing is not as crisp as Dickens', but the author certainly understands the style and is able to twist the Victorian mood to his advantage. Something that caught my attention and which reminded me quite a bit of Dickens, was the way Gilchrist infused a bit of lightness, easing some of the more dramatic elements in the story. There is a nice tug of the reader’s emotions as we begin to fear the worst only to be granted small, important emotional reprieves.

This is a very fun one to read. I can easily recommend it to all lovers of the classic story.