In this re-telling of A Christmas Carol as a fictionalized memoir, Justin R. must make a life-or-death decision: he can give up his stony heart to learn about forgiveness and work the ways of recovery to gain a fleshy heart or he can wreck his life against the obstacles of stress, his ex-wife, and guilt over his past failures.
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Cummins adds a new twist to Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol in this lighthearted take on mental health in contemporary times. The plot takes off in multiple directions and veers firmly away from the original story, as main character Justin discovers he's died from a suicide attempt—and must embark on a journey of self-discovery to be able to truly live again.
Prose: The prose tends to be verbose at times, which distracts from the plot, but the descriptions are lively and the setting feels authentic.
Originality: Ex-Mas Song deviates from A Christmas Carol in many ways, as Cummins spins it to be a modern tale of addiction, trauma, and recovery.
Character/Execution: Justin experiences a fair amount of growth as he works through his suicide attempt and tries to move forward, and Cummins places a big emphasis on faith throughout his odyssey. Justin's on again, off again ex-wife Blair shows less development, transforming into more of a caricature as the novel progresses.
Date Submitted: July 22, 2024
Lovers of Dickens will enjoy picking out surprising correspondences and Easter Eggs (a “Boz” haunts the pages). Unlike many authors inspired by A Christmas Carol, however, Cummins avoids a point-by-point recreation, instead finding fresh approaches to familiar beats and favoring meds over ghosts, all while still embracing Dickens’s themes and eye for social problems, as Justin contemplates the desperation of addiction, adults’ ambivalence for Christmas (“But we knew the truth. It was for kids”), the lives of other patients (one man is “an empty pit of metabolism”), and more.
Ex-Mas Song is hefty in length, and Cummins can’t resist chatty characters and some repetitive prose. But it moves swiftly as Justin, in brisk and unfussy prose, plays Christmas trivia games with other patients, contemplates his childhood in a therapy session or considers the faith of King David, and eventually finds his way to committing to a life worth living. The “song”’s final verse inevitably involves a cemetery, but Cummins upends expectations as the story makes its way toward the traditional transformative ending.
Takeaway: Heartening Christmas epic of finding faith and hope when life doesn’t feel worth living.
Comparable Titles: Annie Rains’s Through the Snow Globe, Richard Paul Evans’s A Christmas Memory.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: B-
