A man takes up the Union cause during the first year of the Civil War, leaving his family behind.

From the author of the international bestseller "Year of Wonders" comes a powerful love story set against the catastrophe of the Civil War. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic "Little Women," Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, and added adult resonance to portray the moral complexity of war and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism.

In a story inspired by the father character in "Little Women" and drawn from the journals and letters of Louisa May Alcott's father, a man leaves behind his family to serve in the Civil War and finds his beliefs challenged by his experiences.

From Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, Mr. March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daugters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father--a friend and confidant of Emerson and Thoreau. In Brooks's telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he as been through.

An extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history by the author of the international bestseller Year of Wonders. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story "filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man" (Sue Monk Kidd). With"pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks s place as a renowned author of historical fiction