What If Scrooge Were A Woman? Best-selling novelist and award winning audiobook narrator Alison Larkin changes the gender of two of Dicken’s most famous characters in an exciting new audiobook release of both Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, freely adapted by Alison Larkin.
Here’s why she did it.
A teenager she knew and loved asked Alison, “What does it matter if you’re gay or straight, or a man wanting to be a woman or a woman wanting to be a man?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Larkin said. “All that matters is love.”
“Then why do people get so upset about it?” the teen asked, genuinely perplexed.
“Because,” Larkin said, “we live in a patriarchal society and we have done for hundreds of years.”
Then Larkin had an idea. “What if I were to take one of the most famous stories in literature and change nothing but the sex of the protagonist? It would be pure Dickens – only Pip would be a woman. The result? A world in which it was quite normal for a girl to learn to read and write or fall in love with a woman or walk into a tavern without being molested or have a career and life that, at the time, only men could dream of.
It was an irresistible question. If gender had been simply irrelevant in the 19th century, where would we all be now?”
She started with Great Expectations by Charles Dickens because of the adoption element to the story which had always haunted her. Larkin’s own bestselling autobiographical novel, The English American, is about an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents in the United States.
“I was so excited by the outcome of Great Expectations, I decided to do the same with A Christmas Carol.”
Both titles are now available worldwide as audiobooks, narrated by Alison Larkin.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, freely adapted by Alison Larkin is also available as a book and e-book from November 15th.
To celebrate the release of both audiobooks, a virtual event will take place on Thursday, December 12 at 6:00pm ET streaming live, worldwide, on Facebook from The Bookloft, an independent book store in in Great Barrington, MA, USA. Larkin will read short excerpt the novels and host a discussion on gender, inviting questions and comments via Facebook from all over the world. For more information visit www.alisonlarkinpresents.com. To take part in the conversation visit the fb page at 6.00 pm Eastern Standard Time (USA) on https://www.facebook.com/AlisonLarkinPresents/
“Both audiobooks are unique, fascinating, heartwarming and beautifully read by an A-list narrator at the top of her game. The ideal holiday gift. I bought several of each!” Michael Gates Gill bestselling author of How Starbucks Saved My Life.
“Alison Larkin is brilliant.” The Times
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.
Alison Larkin is the bestselling author of The English American, an internationally acclaimed comedienne and the award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks including The Complete Novels of Jane Austen.
