Review: Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother

Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother by Eve LaPlante
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My reading on Alcott continues.

My dislike of Bronson grows. Marmee's life sounds like an even bigger nightmare than I thought.

Here is one of my favorite lines that is about Bronson, but also tries to explain the Marmee and Bronson relationship: "[Abigail] tended to idealize Bronson, as he tended to idealize himself."

ANYWAY. Enough about him. This is a great dual biography, of both Abigail May Alcott and her daughter, Louisa May Alcott. It also shows the time and place so well: Boston, in post-Revolutionary years; the New England world that Louisa grew up in; the details of how women make do. The last bit is especially fascinating: how the world tried to limit what women could do, and yet. And yet they did a lot, against so many odds. There is Louisa and her writing, her sister and her art; they also meet others, teachers and doctors and nurses.

And yet: there is so much they cannot do. Marmee does all the work, all the heavy lifting of supporting and feeding her family, but the ways she does that are limited and constrained. I found it especially interesting how many times taking in boarders was a way of earning money, and on my t0-do list once again is to take a look at the way our homes have changed and evolved.

So read this to learn more about Louisa; and how she was raised, and how she was driven to succeed, and how part of that was just to make enough money because of how poor they were. And how she saw how motherhood and career did not really allow for both and so choices were made. One wonders -- what would have been different if the family was not so poor? What would Louisa have achieved? Would Lizzie have died? Would Marmee have lived longer?

But also read to learn more about how people lived then -- a slice of life that is more than cold statistics.

Back to Bronson: I guess he gets some credit for what he was progressive about. BUT. In reading this, I thought the true progressive was Abigail's brother, Samuel Joseph May, and I have to say -- he is someone who is truly interesting, and did more and created more than Bronson.

Bronson was all talk. But I'll say this -- it does show that what he had charisma, and charm. Two factors that don't make one a great person, but does explain why just so many people liked him. Including, apparently, younger women.

He was just the worst.

I hope Marmee had happiness, despite him.



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