Out With Time, a prequel to Oliver Twist, is available through Barnes & Noble. This review is contributed by Mads Golding, a playwright, writer, and independent scholar who focuses on Charles Dickens and the long 19th century.

Out With Time is a delightful, speculative prequel set roughly twenty years before Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist. It examines the back stories, motivations, and social pressures that led to the pivotal moment in Oliver Twist wherein Oliver dares to ask: “Please, sir, I want some more.” This is an excellent introduction to Dickens’s canon for those who may be unfamiliar with his work, and a thoroughly entertaining piece for Dickens enthusiasts. Shoeless’s passion for the subject matter is clear, and their attention to historical detail pays dividends. The language is neo-Victorian and often self-consciously mocks Dickens’s verbose writing style, which is amusing for those who are already familiar with his tone. For those less familiar with the long 19th century, the narrator frequently expands upon the subtleties of the class structure, all while mimicking Dickens’s grim sense of humor.

For those familiar with Dickens’s biography, it is clear that this version of Mr. Bumble is designed to offer a more complicated, humane version of the stock character presented in the original book. Shoeless (the author’s pen name) achieves this by infusing Mr. Bumble’s narrative with many of Dickens’s own lived experiences.

In Out With Time, Mr. Bumble is reimagined as a social climber with a conscience. His trajectory in this prequel reflects Dickens’s own ascent from the lower middle class to the relatively affluent, yet unsettled, middle class. Bumble lives out one of Oliver’s experiences in a more protracted manner that allows Shoeless to explore the social and historical implications and financial perils inherent in class mobility in England during the 1830s. The combination of biography and fantasy makes for a rich, entertaining, and accessible reading experience.

In an effort to examine the injustice of the Victorian social structure, Shoeless depicts Bumble as an often self-conscious protagonist in situations where Dickens himself may well have felt helpless in the face of bureaucratic injustice. Nancy also frequently refers to Bumble as “Boz,” an obvious nod to Dickens’s familial nickname, and a heavy hint at the biographical elements that strengthen the narrative. This book is as much about Dickens, as it is about the characters it borrows from Twist.

As the title implies, the piece toys with time in a way that offers certain characters more agency than they have in Oliver Twist. Nancy is portrayed as a wily working-class contradiction; a young woman who is impossibly beautiful for a woman of her station (at least, according to Bumble), and yet possessed of a deeply pragmatic attitude that permits her to upstage her male counterparts at almost every turn. Shoeless’s reenvisioned, dynamic Nancy complicates Dickens’s well-known habit of writing female characters who are either caricatures of particular class attitudes, or plot devices designed to serve male character narratives. The writer also ties up narrative threads in neat, romantic ways that, though sometimes baffling to contemporary readers, accurately reflect Dickens’s penchant for narrative closure. Shoeless’s mimicry of Dickens’s narrative structure and voice is impressive, and he balances this artful mimicry with original, creative departures from the canonical texts he so obviously respects; this is an admirable debut novel.

Out With Time can be purchased through Barnes & Noble: (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/out-with-time-shoeless/1143492908).

About the author: Few authors would be foolish enough to attempt a prequel to Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, but not this one. With the bravado of a first-time novelist, the author has a background in industry reports and academic publications where creativity is generally discouraged. Then again, a past history as a car salesman, truck driver, teacher and helicopter pilot is perhaps as much background material as anyone could ask for. He now lives quietly in South London with his family.