This book was really sweetly recommended to me by a student in one of my classes, I had to take him up on it and read it after that! The idea is that it tells the story of what the father is experiencing throughout Little Women while he is off at the Civil War. There are also parts with the narration from Marmee’s point of view as well. I thought it was an amazing read!
The book opens with Pa March in the middle of a battle, trying to save other soldiers but being forced to flee. He in particular tries to save a boy who cannot swim, but he thrashes away. From there, it flashes back to him as a traveling salesman and staying on a cotton plantation for some time. He doesn’t like slavery, but he is enamored with all of the leisure time, and so stays a while. He ends up teaching one of the kids to read and is caught, then expelled from the place. Fast forward and he is back at the plantation as an army chaplain and meets one of the women there again. Eventually he is told to get off of the unit as his abolitionist talk is making the men uncomfortable so he transfers to a contraband farm to teach the former slaves.
He enjoys his position there for a while, he eventually gets along fine with the owner and they establish a nice farm for themselves. The army outpost though moves on and they are set upon by irregulars from the Confederate army who capture the slaves. Pa has a narrow escape but is determined to save the owner and as many as he can. This triggers fighting and shooting, everyone is either killed or captured save one former slave that drags Pa off to a hospital before disappearing. This is when Marmee comes to get him. She finds him being tended to by the nurse, who is the woman from the original plantation. When he comes to he is beset by grief and regret, he wants to go back out there and try to make things right, but then Beth gets sick. He heads home, seeing the ghosts of the people he couldn’t save in his daughters.
One of the strengths of this is that the book can be much more political with Pa’s narrative. He talks directly about the war and slavery to just about anyone. Marmee is also active politically, she helps with the Underground Railroad and gets them involved with financing Brown’s venture as well. Little Women is about life on the outskirts of war, Pa is in the middle of it.
I also really appreciated having Marmee’s point of view at times. She can seem too angelic and perfect in the original text. Here she is annoyed with her husband for going to war and being a dreamer instead of living with his family. It makes for a refreshing and realistic change.
The book ends with a note about the sources for all of this. Pa is heavily based on Louisa May Alcott’s father, turns out that he was quite the radical in his day. He wasn’t a preacher but a teacher, hence the teaching on a contraband farm. The timing of the war and that farm even was messed with a little, but it is based on real experiences during the war. Additionally the hospital Pa finds himself in is based on Alcott’s experiences as a Civil War nurse which I thought was a nice touch as well. Some passages are from the novel itself, such as some of the letters Pa writes home. It makes for a very compelling read as it feels like it fits with the original novel like a puzzle piece.
I thought this was an excellent read and a great suggestion
from my student. I’ll have to tell him how much I enjoyed it.
