- March (novel)
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March 
First edition coverAuthor(s) Geraldine Brooks Country United States Language English Genre(s) Historical novel Publisher Viking Press Publication date 2005 Media type Print (Hardback and Paperback) Pages 288 pp ISBN 0670033359 OCLC Number 54974530 Dewey Decimal 823/.914 22 LC Classification PR9619.3.B7153 M37 2005 March is a novel by Geraldine Brooks. It is a parallel novel that retells Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women from the point of view of Alcott's protagonists' absent father. Brooks has inserted the novel into the classic tale, revealing the events surrounding March's absence during the American Civil War in 1862. The novel won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Contents
Plot summary
Mr. March, an abolitionist and chaplain, is driven by his conscience to leave his home and family in Concord, Massachusetts, in order to participate in the war. During this time, March writes letters to his family, but withholds the true extent of the brutality and injustices he witnesses on and off the battlefields. After suffering from a prolonged illness stemming from poor conditions on a cotton farm in Virginia, the recovering March, despite his guilt and grief over his survival when others had perished, returns home to his wife and Little Women, but was scarred by the events he had to go through.
Sources
The character of March is based in part on Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott, who was a teacher and abolitionist. Brooks used as source materials Mr. Alcott's letters and journals, and the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were friends of the Alcott family. Thoreau and Emerson also appear in the novel as secondary characters and friends of the Marches.
Commentary
Teresa Nielsen Hayden has compared the novel to fan fiction, saying that the only difference is that Brooks, Alcott, and publisher Viking Press are "dreadfully respectable." Nielsen Hayden believes that creating fan fiction is "a basic impulse." [1]
References
- ^ “Fanfic”: force of nature at Making Light, April 24, 2006
External links
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2001–2025) - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2001)
- Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2002)
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003)
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004)
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2005)
- March by Geraldine Brooks (2006)
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007)
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2008)
- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2009)
- Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010)
- A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011)
- Complete list
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- (1951–1975)
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- (2001–2025)
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