The best magazine
Just watch Jeopardy to see how often Louisa May Alcott's name comes up as the correct answer.
Drawing on numerous authors and biographers, who have written about Alcott, Cheever clearly analyzes and presents the facts and fictions of her unconventional life.
But Cheever's gift is not only thorough research.
She weaves a work of non-fiction, dry and plodding by many standards, into a fast-paced, hard to put down, enjoyable read.
She presents certain speculations made by others, regarding Alcott's relationships with men and women, and either disregards them, supports them or leaves us to sort out the truth based on the evidence that she presents.
It is a very fair way to treat the complexities and contrasts that make up any individual.
Ms.
Cheever also reminds readers to try to look at Alcott from the framework of the times in which she lived.
Walking a mile in someone's shoes goes beyond empathy for that person.
You must also understand the lifestyle and thinking of the period in which she lived.
Cheever has the reader look at Alcott as an untraditional woman, who never marries, never has children and works to support her family.
That may not seem remarkable by today's standards, but it was almost unheard of in Alcott's time (1832-1888).
Cheever feels Alcott's "expanded vision of what is possible for women" still makes her book Little Women relevant more than a hundred and thirty years after it was written.
Source: ...