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)

Had me gasping out loud.

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

One of the better historical novels that greatly conveys the grinding horror of Sherman's march that helped end the Civil War. There were several parts of the story where I gasped out loud. E.L.Doctrow uses language so well to communicate mood and theme. A truly great author.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Pearl is my favorite character. She helps convey the feelings of a slave while telling the story of the promise of a country evolving into a new social fabric.

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

Joe Morton is a 10/10 narrator. I will actively seek out other books he's narrated for listening. There are many characters in this book. Male, female, southern, northern, poor, wealthy.... Mr. Morton makes this book come alive - it's like listening to a multi-actor radio play. It's hard to believe this was all done by one guy. Just Excellent.

If you could rename The March, what would you call it?

Tearing apart a country to help it heal.

Joe Morton Is Exceptional!

While Doctorow is a master story teller, Joe Morton is the voice that brings each character to life. I was transported back to that time and rode/walked with those on the March. What a marvelous combination of great artists. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of good narration. Joe Morton's narration is excellent.
Highly recommend.

Inside the Civil War

Joe Morton’s narration is perfect for the serious and grave subject of Doctorow’s insight into Sherman’s March through the South to end the CW. The distinct and well drawn characters are so varied in intentions and backgrounds that a listener can picture these people and these devastating times as though walking with each one as a ghostly presence.

Wonderful

Doctorow is a wonderful story teller. The paths of the characters flow, and his language is very satisfying. One of my favorite purchases so far.

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.

Joe Morton is the Best Reader I’ve Ever Heard

I’ve had a paper copy of The March of my shelf for decades but never got more than 100 pages into it. The audiobook is gripping from start to finish. This is mostly due to Joe Morton’s work as reader

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!