Cratchit and Company

Cratchit & Company
by Garrett Gilchrist
A short novel based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

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Ebook version 99 cents at Amazon.com:
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Tiny Tim is dead. Scrooge remains a miserable old miser.

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 ....

"A wonderful new take on the characters from A Christmas Carol." - Carabosse's Library

"Thought-provoking … Like being given a new dose of Dickens." - Lara Burnett

"Beautifully written, intelligent, bold and a real surprise." - Steven Drachman (Author, The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh)

The cover art was drawn with pigment pen on five sheets of paper (head, torso, crutch, legs, Marley). I wanted a realistic look but didn't base it closely on any photographs, preferring to make it up for the most part.

Although the story of A Christmas Carol has been told and retold more than just about any story ever written, I felt it was worth exploring the fairly minor character of Bob Cratchit. The story of a wealthy but heartless man finding redemption is a classic one, but few of us are as wealthy as Scrooge, while a great many of us are as poor as Bob Cratchit, or near enough. I saw him as an everyman, a George Bailey perhaps, dealing with very real problems. The story itself is a surreal one. A character piece, and a tearjerker. I didn't attempt to emulate Dickens' writing style and kept my prose relatively light and modern. It's not a great morality tale the way the original was, but it will have you looking at these characters in a different way.

Now available in paperback at Lulu.com!
[link]

Ebook version 99 cents at Amazon.com:
[link]