• The March

  • A Novel
  • By: E.L. Doctorow
  • Narrated by: Joe Morton
  • Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (857 ratings)

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The March  By  cover art

The March

By: E.L. Doctorow
Narrated by: Joe Morton
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Publisher's summary

In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking cattle and crops for their own, demolishing cities, and accumulating a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the uprooted, the dispossessed, and the triumphant. Only a master novelist could so powerfully and compassionately render the lives of those who marched.

The author of Ragtime, City of God, and The Book of Daniel has given us a magisterial work with an enormous cast of unforgettable characters–white and black, men, women, and children, unionists and rebels, generals and privates, freed slaves and slave owners. At the center is General Sherman himself; a beautiful freed slave girl named Pearl; a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius; Emily Thompson, the dispossessed daughter of a Southern judge; and Arly and Will, two misfit soldiers.

Almost hypnotic in its narrative drive, The March stunningly renders the countless lives swept up in the violence of a country at war with itself. The great march in E. L. Doctorow’s hands becomes something more–a floating world, a nomadic consciousness, and an unforgettable reading experience with awesome relevance to our own times.

Enjoy The March? Listen to an interview with E.L. Doctorow on The Bob Edwards Show.
©2005 E.L. Doctorow (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

PEN/Faulkner Award Winner, Fiction, 2005

National Book Award Finalist, Fiction, 2005

2005 Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, Fiction

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Fiction, 2005

"In this powerful novel, Doctorow gets deep inside the pillage, cruelty and destruction, as well as the care and burgeoning love that sprung up in their wake....On reaching the novel's last pages, the reader feels wonder that this nation was ever able to heal after so brutal, and personal, a conflict." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about The March

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Uncivil War

Authors and historians uniformly treat war as either an individual's experience or some combination of military strategies and conquests. Almost never does an author show that war is not either or, but both.

Doctorow walks the tightrope in this gripping story of battles, conquests, race, class and individuals....especially individuals, representing every stripe and type all swallowed by Sherman's multi-bodied beast and its inexorable march to the sea.

In covering Sherman's campaign, the author makes it emblematic of the whole Civil War. The casual cruelty is more than any planned offensive. The lives broken and reformed a kind of mirror of a ravaged and remade Union.

There's not a single slow passage in the whole narrative and the urge to listen to it from beginning to end in a single sitting nearly irresistable.

More than any tale in memory, this is the most compelling reconstruction of what Civil War really meant.

This is a must have!

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40 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

An average book

The reviews on this book have been very good and emphasize the civil war/Sherman context, which I found lacking. The book was an interesting enough listen but no more. The book uses the civil war as a mere backdrop, the March of Sherman is no more than a basic connection between stories and the characters are not terribly compelling. Some of them seem to be more of a reason to flash between stories as opposed to a real character in and of themselves The narrative flows well enough but its not terribly engrossing. If I had gotten this book in print version, I would not have finished it. As an audio book, it is good enough but not great.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book and Great Reader

This is a most enjoyable book, one of the best I have heard. There are many different voices ranging from the accents of southern, both those born free and the enslaved. There is also the ride range of voices found among the northerners. The reader does an excellent job.

The character development is wonderful and even though you know how the American Civil War ends, The March keeps you interested in its characters. You want to know what happens to Pearl, the newly freed young slave girl, Miss Emily, the judge’s daughter who looses everything when Sherman comes to town, particular soldiers, troop followers and a host of others affected by General Sherman’s march. You spend some time with Sherman and his officers, and the privates on foot. You meet an army surgeon born in Germany and a British reporter.

You encounter the brutality of war and still find some humor. The unexpected happens.

It is a good solid listen and one I look forward to hearing again.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

The Best

This is the best book I have heard or "read" since joining Audible. I think that the writing and the reading were excellent. For civil war history buffs, this is a must. I have tried others by this author and not been able to finish. I thought that the discussion of the many factors of the march and the war were very well done. I will look for other books by Doctorow now.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

It was OK

Positive features: A gripping description of how war affected individuals.
Negative: Feeble attempt to blend fictional characters with historic events. I've read better.

Not unentertaining; mostly average.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Captivating

I listened to the March on a 5 hour drive to Charleston And couldn't wait to get back into my car to continue with this moving, powerful and insightful novel. The narrator fit the book to a T. I likened the experience to watching a Ken Burns' documentary and was sorry to see it end.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

A good listen

?The March? is a well-constructed listen with a good narrator. Like many of the audible listeners I keep a book on my iPod at all times and find this one of my favorite parts of the day. I listen to the New York Times on the way to work and a novel home. I am a Civil War buff and found some interesting insight here. The suspense, however, was not so great that I sat in the car in the garage. That is my criteria for a great novel. I give it a 4 of 5.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The Havoc of War

Doctorow turns his masterful writing ability to the 1864 March of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman burned Atlanta and then marched his Union Army of sixty thousand through Georgia and up the Carolinas. The troops lived off the land, pillaging and demolishing cities along the way.

Doctorow has provided the reader with an enormous caste of unforgettable characters, white, black, men, women and children. The key cast is Sherman, Colonel Sartorius a Union regimental surgeon, Emily Thompson, the dispossessed daughter of a George Supreme Court Judge, the two misfit soldiers Arty and Will, and last but not least, Pearl the beautiful freed slave girl. The author provides a stunning description of the countless victims swept up in the violence of a country at war with itself.

My mind wanders from Doctorow’s descriptions of the families displaced by civil war to what I was watching daily on T.V. of the civil war refugees fleeing Syria to Europe. The book won the National Book Critics Award and the 2005 PEN/Faulkner award and was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Joe Morton did a good job narrating the book.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

More narrators like this, please...

Exceptionally well written; Doctorow has mastered the English language and tells a fascinating, fact-based tale which kept me engrossed. The narrator is the best I've heard in an audiobook and he truly brings the characters to life.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

The Civil War Marches On

This is a very good book but it is long and I am exhausted after marching, burning, and plundering across the South; I am ready to end the war as soon as possible but the characters are fascinating and they are hard to let go.

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5 people found this helpful