Booklist’s starred review says “magnificent” biography brings Louisa “to whirling life.”
Reisen’s love for Little Women and curiosity about the author became a grand obsession, inspiring her to write the screenplay for the first Alcott documentary and this uniquely vital and dramatic biography. Reisen’s cinematic eye brings Louisa to whirling life as a coltish, fearless girl of “explosive exuberance” and sharp intellect, while she portrays Louisa’s parents with compassion and criticism: blue-blooded Abigail, continually pregnant, impossibly burdened, yet resilient and innovative; utopian Bronson, famous for his progressive ideas, infamous for his incompetence. Alcott inherited her mother’s pragmatism and courage and a touch of her father’s vision and madness and bravely struggled through a crazy-quilt childhood of wretched poverty and social privilege—their closest friends were the luminaries Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, whom Alcott loved. She supported the family, laboring as a laundress, teaching, and serving as an army nurse in the Civil War while “training herself as a businesswoman as well as a fast, versatile pen for hire.” Reisen analyzes Louisa’s great pleasure in writing lucrative pulp fiction, her sacrifices, adventures, and brilliant career. Here, finally, is Alcott whole, a trailblazing woman grasping freedom in a time of sexual inequality and war, a survivor of cruel tragedies, a quintessential American writer. Reisen’s magnificent biography will be in high demand when PBS premieres her American Masters documentary. — Donna Seaman
People Magazine asks, “Who Knew?”
“The Little Women author smoked hash, had a crush on Thoreau and may have been manic depressive,” says People’s November 23, 2009 issue.
“Who knew?”
Washington Paper Lauds Biography
“Ms. Reisen is a master storyteller, enthused Marion Elizabeth Rodgers of The Washington Times about the author of Louisa May Alcott. “With compassion and insight, she propels readers on to the next adventure, sacrifice, tragedy and triumph… .that happy sense of discovery is your reward in reading this masterful work by this talented new biographer.”
Alcott audiobook set for December 1, 2009
Tantor Media is finishing recording Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women and expects to have it in stores well before Christmas. Author Harriet Reisen is the narrator. Tantor Media is coming up fast in the audiobook world–it puts out 30-50 titles each month.
ELLE says “oui” to Louisa’s story
“Harriet Reisen’s Louisa May Alcott captures the grit and grace notes of the hardscrabble life and eventual fame of the Little Women author. When not writing books, magazine pieces, journal entries, and letters, Alcott tended Civil War soldiers, traveled, and taught. Her story equals—maybe bests—her beloved book about the lively March sisters.” Elle, November 2009
Good Housekeeping: Seal of Approval
Good Reads, Book Picks for November recommends bio “To Delight You: Louisa May Alcott, by Harriet Reisen. Born to a prestigious but poor New England family. Little Women’s creator wresteled with, ambition, illness, and fame …. this juicy bio is a page-turner.”
Good Housekeeping: Seal of Approval
Good Housekeeping’s Good Reads, Book Picks, for November recommends bio “To Delight You: Louisa May Alcott, by Harriet Reisen. Born to a prestigious but poor New England family. Little Women’s creator wresteled with, ambition, illness, and fame… this juicy bio is a page-turner.”
Library Journal: “lively and appealing;” “compelling”
“This compelling biography allows readers to know Alcott and appreciate her as “her own best character,” says Library Journal. VERDICT? “Highly recommended.”
November VOGUE calls Alcott Bio “Vibrant”
Vogue: (Nov 09) “Harriet Reisen’s Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Henry Holt) is a biography as vibrant as its subject—a flesh and blood Jo March whose fiction discloses both public activism and private undercurrents, including an adolescent crush on Thoreau.”
