Welcome to another installment of Christmas in quarantine. It's Christmas Past's impromptu mini-series of indeterminate length.

Stay subscribed for one new episode every day until things are looking better with the COVID-19 crisis.

Now, in addition to washing your hands and practicing social distancing, I hope you're also

taking the chance to catch up on some reading during your time at home.

If you're like me, you usually have more books on your reading list than you can get to.

I'm currently reading A Literary Christmas, a collection of short stories from contemporary

authors like Paul Oster and Tobias Wolf. And just recently,

I finished reading Marley, the latest novel from John Clinch. It's a return to the world of

Dickens and a Christmas Carol and the untold story of Ebenezer Scrooge's relationship with

his business partner, Jacob Marley. We know little about Marley from Dickens' original,

but here he's brought vividly to life, in a cracking tale about double dealings, false identities,

debauchery, and perhaps above all else, the making of the Ebenezer Scrooge we meet in a Christmas

Carol. I caught up with John Clinch recently from his home in Vermont. I hope you

enjoy our conversation. I'll come back at the end to wrap up and say goodbye, but for now,

here's my recent conversation with author John Clinch.

John Clinch, welcome to Christmas past. You know, I'd rather be on Christmas past than Christmas future.

I think you speak for all of us there.

That's the scary one, Buzz. Thank you.

Now, listen, I think like most people my age, I'm in my 40s now, one of my first exposures to the world of Marley and Scrooge was in Mickey's Christmas Carol, where Goofy plays the part of

Marley. And we meet him very briefly and without a lot of detail. And so it wasn't until I was in

my later childhood, maybe eight or nine, where I saw something that's a little more faithful to the book.

It was a stage adaptation where that scene between Marley and Scrooge is a little more fully realized.

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