Louisa May Alcott (Reisen) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
At last, Louisa May Alcott has the biography that admirers of Little Women might have hoped for.
Wall Street Journal's Best 10 Books of the Year


Fans will adore Harriet Reisen's sympathetic biography.... With charming verve, she details Alcott's remarkable if difficult life.
USA Today
 

Superb.... Punctuates the myths of the Alcott family, rendering Louisa May with nuance.
Chicago Tribune


If Beth, Meg, Amy, and Jo are forever fixed in your memory, you’ll be fascinated by this well-researched and well-written biography of the author of Little Women. But Reisen is only an adequate reader of her own work. She has a lovely low-pitched voice, but a narrow vocal range and little ability to provide dramatic energy or diversity to her narrative and characters. This diminishes the listener’s emotional connection to members of the Alcott family and the famous transcendentalists and feminists who peopled Louisa’s very turbulent life.
Publishers Weekly


Public television writer and producer Reisen's biography is the result of a deeply held, lifelong affection for Louisa May Alcott; it's a substantial by-product of the research undertaken to write and produce a documentary film biography of the same title to air December 2009 as part of the PBS "American Masters" series. Reisen's writing is lively and appealing. She analyzes Alcott's best-known works—Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys—as well as Pauline's Passion and Punishment, Behind a Mask, and Perilous Play, the pulp fiction Alcott wrote anonymously or as A.M. Barnard. Drawing extensively from Alcott's journals and letters as well as those of her family members, Reisen portrays Alcott's life with precision and sympathy yet does not hide her flaws. This compelling biography allows readers to know Alcott and appreciate her as "her own best character." VerdictL Highly recommended for Alcott fans as well as readers interested in American women writers and women's studies. —Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN
Library Journal


A deliciously palatable biography of the iconic writer whose life was "as full of plot and character as any [she] invented."Inspired by research from her documentary of Alcott (1832-1888) for the PBS series American Masters, Reisen delivers an in-depth portrait of the spirited, sentimental, imaginative, realistic woman whose childhood vow was to "be rich, famous, and happy." Reisen draws extensively from Alcott's prodigious output of literary works, travel sketches, articles, journals and letters, as well as the recollections of her contemporaries. Born to bohemian intellectuals, the young Alcott grew into a moody, passionate girl much like her famous character, Jo March. Her parents kept the company of transcendental luminaries like Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and Hawthorne, but experienced material poverty. The utopian nightmare of her father's experiment in communal living, her youngest sister's death and her older sister's engagement became defining events in Alcott's life, leaving her determined to shoulder family financial and household burdens. Under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, Alcott churned out pulp-fiction thrillers, generating income and sating her thirst for adventure. She followed the phenomenal success of Little Women in 1868 with six other popular children's novels, but was tormented by a culture of celebrity and ill health until her death. Reisen deftly weaves the story of Alcott's life into the rich social, cultural and historical fabric of mid-19th-century New England. The author's insightful examination reveals Alcott as a compulsive writer who peppered her stories with external details and internal currents of her life; an ardent abolitionist who served as a Civil War army nurse; a self-espoused spinster who cherished her independence but harbored a schoolgirl romantic attachment to Thoreau and a midlife crush on a young Polish pianist; a thoroughly modern feminist who wrote about the power struggle between the sexes and championed women's suffrage; and a middle-aged woman who relied on opiates to cope with her failing health. An absorbing portrait of the protean author whose "life was no children's book."
Kirkus Reviews