Reviewed on Richard and Judy on 8 March 2006. A novel of the American Civil War with the absent father of the girls in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the protagonist. It’s got all the blood and gore of war, the politics and horror of the period and then a lovely touch of bringing in those famous girls as he corresponds. I found it a very interesting way of handling that devastating time. A compulsive, pensive and rewarding read which I thoroughly enjoyed.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
| Recommendations: |
Set during the American Civil War, MARCH tells the story of John March, known to us as the father away from his family of girls in LITTLE WOMEN, Louisa May Alcott’s classic American novel. In Brooks’ telling, March emerges as an abolitionist and idealistic chaplain on the front lines of a war that tests his faith in himself and in the Union cause when he learns that his side, too, is capable of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness in a Washington hospital, he must reassemble the shards of his shattered mind and body, and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.
As Alcott drew on her real-life sisters in shaping the characters of her little women, so Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father, an idealistic educator, animal rights exponent and abolitionist who was a friend and confidante of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The story spans the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, through to the first year of the Civil War as the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats.
Like her bestselling YEAR OF WONDERS, MARCH follows an unconventional love story. It explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.
March features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, Recommendations
March is available in Ebook, Paperback (b Format)
March was written by Geraldine Brooks and published by Harpercollins Publishers
March has 280 pages
£9.89
