March by Geraldine Brooks
by Joan Marshall - Tuesday Jan 22 2008 10:59 am
Posted in: Reviews

This fascinating novel explores the conflicted life of preacher Mr. March, the father of the girls in Alcott's Little Women.

March attempts to live out his Christian faith against the background of the American Civil War. He leaves Concord as a blazing abolitionist, sure of the morality of his work with the Underground Railway. Donating his money to John Brown (and thus losing it to the purchase of arms for slave insurrection), he returns from the south a penniless, broken man, chastened by his inability to effect lasting change in the lives of the suffering people he has tried to serve.

March illuminates the horror of war, the inhumanity of men on both sides and the naivite, in particular, of the northern intellectuals. Brooks is a master of character development, allowing the actions and words of March and his wife to expose their true beliefs and their struggle to continue to love one another.

Recommended to anyone who loves history and/or literature, this book justly won the Pulitzer Prize and will linger long in the minds of readers.

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