Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19113 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-15
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Douglas Kennedy, Waterstones Books Quarterly
'March is that rare species: a serious popular novel that is not afraid to grapple with big ideas.'

Sophie Harrison, Sunday Times
'Brooks's considerable historical research for March is pleasingly lightly worn...make[s] clever use of Little Women without suffocating beneath it.'

Economist
'Researched with great historical thoroughness, March hews faithfully to the spirit of Alcott's original...Louise May Alcott would be well pleased.'

Customer Reviews

March down to a book shop and buy this book!
This book is based on the father of the girls of Little Women.Mr March as he know as in the book goes off to War down south during the American Civil War. March is troubled by War thoughout the book & what he sees often distrubes his very soul. The book is slow to start off with but stick with it as you get into it the use of words will surpise and enlighten you and make it hard for you to put it down. I have never read Little Women but after i finished reading this i went straight out and got a copy of the book

Couldn't put it down!
What a great story! 'March' is really well-written and researched and fills a neat gap in US Civil War literature.

'March' is the story of the girls' father in Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women'. In 'Little Women' the girls' father is absent throughout the novel as he is away at war, and Geraldine Brooks has picked up on this thread and woven a wonderfully inspirational novel around the story of Mr. March. Through it she tests out the theme of the morality of war which works ok with the causes of the US Civil War, and re-integration into a normal existence after war - another sensitive subject.

March is an abolitionist and goes to serve for the Union cause as an army chaplain. He joins up in a moment of town fervour, only to find that he cannot join with his fellow townspeople and is left to find his way amongst strangers from another regiment. The writing - predominantly from March's point of view - varies between letters home to Marmee and recollections of earlier times, and stories he wouldn't consider writing about to Marmee and the girls.

It's very sympathetically written and you can't help but be affected by March's journey through the landscape of war. The book doesn't impinge on 'Little Women' until right at the very end when March returns home, so there's no overlap with the all-time classic by Louisa May Alcott, and it complements 'Little Women' really well. Can't recommend it enough!

An ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times!
Geraldine Brooks has produced an ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times and has successfully drawn some of her principal characters from Louisa May Alcott's classic, 'Little Women,' creating in the process an elaboration of the life of the Revd. Mr March, father of the little women, who, whilst being an aggravating and hypocritical Yankee clergyman, nevertheless leads an extraordinary life, both in Connecticut and in The South during the American 'Civil War' (or 'War for Southern Independence,' depending upon personal preference: I prefer the latter). The fact that the author cleverly introduces Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and even John Brown (he of the body and the soul that marches on), all most effectively but without particular surprise in the context, is a tribute to her story-telling skill. The fact that Mr March learns a lot of the complications of that frightful conflict of 1861-1865 is a reflection of the author's fine research and scholarship. The fact that the mid-19th-century language seems to be 'spot-on' to one who reads and enjoys such stuff also reflects well on Ms. Brooks: she has produced another riveting tale, which I could not put down, and I congratulate her!