In an interview from the PBS American Masters documentary, “ Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women,” Brooks admits to an “immense soft spot” for Bronson. It’s the obvious choice: Bronson is the poster boy of impractical idealists.

“It seemed to me he would be an excellent vehicle through which to explore this question.” An impractical idealistīrooks uses the life of Bronson Alcott to flesh out March. “Then I remembered the absent father in Alcott’s novel, about whom we hear very little, except that he has enlisted to minister to the Union troops,” she says. “I was thinking about this in the context of the Civil War. “I was interested in what happens to idealists at war, people who go to war because of highly idealistic beliefs, but then find their ideals challenged by the very nature of war,” Brooks says. Brooks recalls her motivation for writing March in an article by Linda Sickler of the Savannah Morning News: This is only one of many events that will torment March with guilt.Īs in Little Women, March is portrayed as an idealistic minister and dedicated abolitionist.

Right away March is placed in a compromising position in his effort to save a dying soldier, eventually having to let him go as they struggle together to cross the river. The story moves quickly from “sweet words” to gruesome descriptions of battle and desperate escape. Set during the Civil War, the book opens with a letter March is writing to Marmee and the girls, taken from Little Women.

Geraldine Brooks’ writing is aggressive: poking, prodding and shaking the reader out of complacency. Brooks places you in a decidedly gray-shaded world which is not for the faint of heart. Reader beware: you must be willing to set aside any pre-conceived, black and white notions about Little Women in order to appreciate March. March succeeds in taking characters of mythical proportion and bringing them down to earth, turning them into living, breathing people, vastly more interesting, with decided with feet of clay. She takes that risk a step further by fleshing out Marmee, the quintessential mother figure. March, in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, March (Penguin Books, 2005). Geraldine Brooks presents a bold and provocative story centered on the “shadow” character of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Mr. Historical fiction is a risky genre, especially if the author is tackling a beloved American classic.

March by geraldine