From award-winning author Steven Laffoley comes a captivating new novel.
It is December 1918. The old world – shaped by the values of Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens – is gone and the new world now wallows in post-war chaos and darkness.
A veteran of the gas attacks and trenches, Michael Bell has returned home to a city traumatised by war and a devastated by an explosion, where he finds work at The Halifax Herald, writing about what he sees as the truth, about an age defined only by lawlessness, disease, and disorder.
Then, four days before Christmas, Michael’s finds his truth-telling efforts challenged by a small, one-legged boy who arrives at the newspaper office with a single, silver twenty-five cent piece for “the little children.” When the boy strangely disappears, the paper’s editor, Walter Stone, sees a potential Dickensian story for a city in desperate need of hope. He assigns Michael and new reporter Tess Archer the job of finding the boy and telling his story – all before the Christmas Eve edition.
At first, Michael objects, believing such stories to be dangerous lies in the face of the dark truths. However, after a mysterious dream of his mother leads to difficult questions, he accepts the assignment, if only to prove small acts of generosity are meaningless in the face of a growing darkness. Yet, as Michael follows his leads through an array of the city’s desperate people, he is increasingly haunted by the hidden meaning of his dream and soon realizes understanding will only come if he finds the boy – but for Michael and the city, time is fast running out.
Filled with a cast of compelling characters and vivid images, A Halifax Christmas Carol tells the story of a true age of darkness and the transformative power of hope.
Steven Laffoley is the author of eight books, including the award-winning biography Shadowboxing and the bestselling novel The Blue Tattoo.
Reviews
“Powerful, stirring and simple Finished in a storm of tears. Best thing you’ve written.”
– Jon Tattrie, author of “Black Snow.”
“An elegant story framed around Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the novel tells the story of a maimed little boy who turns up at a newspaper with a quarter to give to other kids who “need it more” than he does and the soldier-turned-journalist who has to tell his story. Laffoley paints a striking portrait of a Halifax stunned by the disaster and the just-ended war, yearning for hope and ultimately a peace that will allow them to begin to remember all that was lost.”
– Atlantic Books Today
Steven Laffoley 