The March

A Novel

By: E.L. Doctorow

Narrated by: Joe Morton

Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins

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)

long and easy to follow

If you enjoy war and civil war time period there maybe redeming value here. I did not get much out of this story but there is much here to entertain. It was a very easy read and worth the time.

Let's Use Gen. Sherman and tell emancipation

If you could sum up The March in three words, what would they be?

What is emanication.

Would you be willing to try another book from E.L. Doctorow? Why or why not?

Maybe. Storyline is readable(listenable) but weak.

What does Joe Morton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Morton is quite good. Moved the overall grade from three stars to four.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. Just not that much umph.

Any additional comments?

What is it about our (U.S.) civil war. I have read/listened to a dozen histories (including all of Shelly Foote's the Civil War - which was phenomial) and four stories with Civil War backgrounds; yet one would think the horror of it all would cause one to stop reading about it and avoid having to live through the agony that episode of history wrought on people. Yet, when envisioning that human struggle that put brother against brother and enslaver against slave, that upheaval seems to always give us hope that no matter how horrible we think we are as humans, we may, just by small progressions - very small progressions - be making ourselves better creatures. What a massive toll it took to cause the damnation of slavery.

not a light read, but interesting

The March, had lots of great characters, and the narrator was a very good reader. It was jus ok in my mind. It is very short, but it is a little but hard to get into.

A moving and sobering trip back in time ...

a gifted natrator brought the msny souls Doctorow introduced me to to life. regretted the end ... could have listened for hours more.

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.

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.

Just a wonderful book

And Joe Morton is my new favorite narrator. This book defines Sherman's march by the outlines created by the stories of the many, varied and interesting characters portrayed. It is beautifully done, with outstanding descriptions and characterizations. I hated for it to end!

Bad reader

Where does The March rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

What I loved about this was the detailed depiction of the horrors and wanton destruction of Sherman's march. (I am assuming that Mr. Doctorow did his research.) This is an event in history that was given very short shrift in my distant high school education. It's no wonder that The South still holds a lot of grudges against The North.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Joe Morton?

This is a very disappointing read by a good actor. Too bad. He doesn't seem to have rehearsed at all, so that by the time he reaches the end of a sentence, he sounds surprised. However, his voice is very nice. But he also seems to confuse a southern accent with stupidity, so that the intelligent characters and the slower ones all sound equally slow of mind.

A compliment to Foote' The Civil War Narrative

The narration made the characters come to life. Although a historical fiction novel, it captures the delicate relationship between the southerners who were faced with a superior Union Army who was fighting for a country.

Out of the Shadows of History

Most people know, at least in a general sense, about the scorched-earth horrors of William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea. But now this pivotal time toward the end of the American Civil War takes on a new and often disturbing life.

E.L. Doctorow has given it a face. Actually, many faces. Joe Morton gives it voices.

The effect is riveting.