March

By: Geraldine Brooks

Narrated by: Richard Easton

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize—a powerful love story set against the backdrop of the Civil War, from the author of The Secret Chord.

From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story "filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man" (Sue Monk Kidd). With "pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks' place as a renowned author of historical fiction.

Don't miss Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women.

©2005 Geraldine Brooks (P)2005 Penguin Audio and BBC Audiobooks America

Critic reviews

"Brilliant...Geraldine Brooks' new novel, March, is a very great book.... Brooks has magnificently wielded the novelist's license." (Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune)

"A beautifully wrought story.... Gripping.... A taut plot, vivid characters and provocative issues." (Heller McAlpin, Los Angeles Times Book Review)

"Honorable, elegant and true." (John Freeman, The Wall Street Journal)

The Narrator Made This Book

I loved this story. Read it with my book group and we were all in agreement. It takes place during the same year as the first part of Little Women. Mr. March, and idealistic preacher, has enlisted in the Union to try and bolster the men's morale. It isn't long before they begin to resent his platitudes and he gets shuffled off to act as a teacher to "contraband", freed slaves still in danger of being taken back into slavery. Soon he begins to lose a grasp of his idealist dreams as the reality of the slaves' situation begins to unravel.

Brooks has done an excellent job showing these characters from an adult point of view rather than that of a child looking at her parents as Alcott had created them. I also enjoy the way we see Mr. March's point of view and then Marmee's view of the same part of the story.

The narrator was excellent and was very believable as both Mr. March and Marmee.

March

I really enjoyed this book. It was recommended to me by a person who read it and liked it. Some gruesome descriptions of the Cilvil War but that’s how it was back then. It filled in the blank years of Little Women. If you liked Little Women you will like March.

LOVED THIS BOOK

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as both a read and an audible book. I felt like I was in the room or on sight at every location. I deeply cared about each of these characters. Little Women was my first favorite book. This may have equal adoration from me. The narration was fantastic. I can’t say enough about it.

March

I liked the twists and turns of March’s journeys. The character development was well done.

Lovely.

What did you love best about March?

I read Little Women about 500 times in my childhood/adolescence. It was my 'go to' alternate universe to escape from the world I actually lived in. This book fleshes out that alternate universe in such a rich, sophisticated way. Highly recommend. ps...I really hate this format for reviews. I don't need your help deciding what to say, k? thanks.

a good companion book

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I liked this book. It isn't a sequel to Alcott's beloved Little Women. It is more of a companion book. We get to flesh out the absent March father, and to flesh out Marmie as well. Geraldine Brooks has a wonderful writing style. She obviously did extensive research for this book. And she knew that she was going to attract some avid Alcott fans who would have high expectations. She treated the characters with love and respect and I appreciated her efforts. It isn't my favorite of her books, but I loved my chance to revisit the story I read so many times in my youth.

Richard Easton was fantastic. I would definitely listen to more books read by him.

Very good

Very good companion to Little Women. Interesting perspective of the civil war and mr. March's experience parallel to Little Women.

Seems like only half a book

Seems to have been going along pretty well, then the story stopped. I won’t say it ended, as it feels like it just stopped midstream. Perhaps the author got tired of the story, as I did.

Disappointing

I didn't at all care for the characterizations. Mr. March was weak and pandered to immature emotions; Marmee was way too feminist for her time. If you're a fan of Little Women, you won't enjoy Brooks' characterizations.

Unfortunately, the narrator didn't do much to make the characters likable. An Englishman reading a book set during America's War Between the States was just awkward.

This was a creative idea for a story, but I think it could have been better rendered. Although historically accurate and well-researched, it should have been about Louisa Alcott's father, not Mr. March. One might argue that Mr. March himself was modeled after Bronson Alcott, but when you take a beloved classic and embellish it, you have to be careful of which direction you take the story so as not to diminish the original but rather enhance it.

3☆☆☆

Better book than Little Women

As a girl, I tried...really tried...to like Little Women for my Mom's sake. I even received a set of dolls for Christmas, Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth.I tried to treasure them like Mom did. Couldn't. The book was just too sweet and nicey nice.
March was almost 180 degrees in the opposite direction. There was nothing "nice" about this character. He was kind of pathetic in his never ending lapses. He came close to being human, but seemed to lack the ability to get out of his academic, hopelessly idealistic dream world. Not even the interesting character Grace or his beleaguered wife Marmee (what an awful name!!!) could penetrate his shell.
I thought the narrator adopted the perfect tone for March. While reciting the sometimes flowery phrases, he revealed the flaws that plagued him.
Not my favorite book, but I'm glad I persisted. I liked the author's afterwords. Turns out she shared my feelings about Little Women. I'm grateful to her for bringing us March to improve my reactions to the entire package.