Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women

By Harriet Reisen
Henry Holt & Company, $26.00, 362 pages

Anyone who has ever read and been charmed by Little Women should pick up this book on a rainy morn with cookies and a hot cup of tea. Riesen proves that she is a seasoned biographer, taking time to carefully and thoroughly distinguish between the writer and the individual. The May/Alcott family histories display superior research and provide a fine prologue to the mood-filled, vibrant story of Louisa May Alcott.

With all the precision of a documentary director, Riesen takes us through Louisa’s frustrated-yet-interesting childhood, her disappointed youth, the famous writers who drifted in and out of the Alcott family’s acquaintance, and the all-encompassing release this young woman found in writing. Though it is known that Alcott wrote more books than the March Family Series (Little Women, Little Men & Jo’s Boys), to have so many of these titles actually mentioned was rare and appreciated. It behooves the literary community to be reminded-from time to time-that great writers of the past were merely human, subject to fits of temper, made mistakes and occasionally had to drag themselves out of the mire of despair. Throughout the entire piece Reisen’s grasp of this and her regard for Alcott’s writing could not be more apparent.

Reviewed by Meredith Greene