When we met Edmund Filliput last week, he was in a dour mood on Christmas Eve, and a cheerful man in a top hat bought him a cup of coffee and a bowl of beef stew and offered to introduce him to some old friends of his that very night.
Today we follow Edmund home, where his dreamless sleep is interrupted by the first of those old friends, whose identity should not surprise anyone who has guessed who the happy stranger was. (And I did not try very hard to disguise him. What’s the name of the story again?)
I’m celebrating my new novelette by reading it in podcast form, a chapter a week, during this Christmas season. Of course, if you’re impatient for what comes next, the book is available for purchase in several formats.
I have to confess I’m surprised to find that so far, orders of the hardcover edition are outpacing orders of the paperback, which in turn are outpacing orders of the ebook. I’m also gratified, of course, by people’s willingness to spend a little more, not just for the physical book, but the one designed to last a bit longer.
I’m having fun bringing the story to life in what will eventually become my first audiobook. I really must go back and do the same with some of my other stuff. The fun should not have been a surprise; my online life began, after all, with a podcast serialization of my first novel, The Imaginary Bomb.
The rendition of “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful” that appears in these podcasts, by the way, comes from my collection of 78 rpm records. The singers are the Trinity Choir, and the record is Victor 16996; “Joy to the World” is the B-side. Among information on the label are the facts that “Adeste Fideles” was translated from the original Latin by the Rev. Fred Oakeley (1802-1880) and the melody is by Marcas Portugal (1763-1834), both morsels that I didn’t know before.
The invaluable 78discography.com tells me that the song was recorded on Oct. 6, 1911, three months to the day after the choir performed for the B-side. The record, which still sounds magnificent to me after 112 years of wear, felt like the perfect accompaniment to this story.
Thanks to everyone who has sent kind words of encouragement about Ebenezer and, of course, God bless us, every one!
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