The Revelation of Louisa May (26 page)

Of all the members of Louisa's family, her father is conspicuously absent from most of
Little Women
, perhaps her way of expressing her disappointment in him. Ironically, after the publication of
Little Women
, Bronson made a fortune lecturing about his life as the father of the
Little Women
.

Bronson Alcott was one of the Transcendentalist philosophers. They believed in the inherent goodness of people and importance of nature. Stressing self-reliance and independence, Transcendentalism is considered one of the first American intellectual movements. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were considered leaders of the movement.

Abba “Marmee” Alcott came from a wealthy pedigreed family. They considered that she had married far beneath her when she married a poor farmer's son who hadn't even had a formal education. Certainly her pampered upbringing had not prepared her for life with Bronson.

Over the course of their marriage, the Alcotts moved twenty-nine times, always looking for less expensive lodging.
At first Abba's family helped generously, but eventually they grew frustrated that Bronson could not support the family. However, their elegant houses in Boston often hosted the Alcott girls, exposing Louisa to a style of life she always envied.

Louisa was very close to her mother, Marmee. Marmee gave her her first pen, encouraging her to write as a safety valve for her strong emotions that might otherwise overwhelm her. Louisa was the daughter most like her mother, and Marmee got into the habit of confiding her troubles to Louisa, including their financial struggles.

At the urging of Bronson's friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the family settled in Concord in 1844. Bronson briefly relocated the family to Fruitlands, his utopian community. Fruitlands was a colossal failure, lasting only seven months, and it nearly broke up the Alcott family. Afterwards a humiliated Bronson went through a long period of depression. He only recovered when they returned to Concord and bought Hillside with a small inheritance from Abba's father. Marmee decided that if Bronson was not able to support them, she would. In 1846, at the start of this story, Abba left her family and went to work in New Hampshire.

At Hillside, the family knew several years of stability, if not prosperity. Louisa was particularly happy to have a room of her own. Bronson proved to be a good farmer and a clever carpenter. They lived simply, eating a vegetarian diet; Bronson was against using animals against their will, so they ate no meat and used no leather. He would have preferred that the
family not wear wool, but Abba insisted. For a time the family also didn't wear cotton, to protest the use of slaves in cotton picking.

Ralph Waldo Emerson lived a few minutes down the road and Louisa was a frequent visitor. She was one of the few people Emerson allowed into his library. As an adult, Louisa confessed her childhood crush on Emerson.

Emerson was hugely respected in town, although many people raised their eyebrows at his friendship with and support of the Alcotts, who were considered very odd by the townspeople. One local wit said that “Emerson was a seer and Alcott was a seersucker.” One way that Bronson tried to repay his friend was by building Emerson a gazebo. The structure was so unusual that people in town mocked it and Mrs. Emerson called it a “Ruin.” Bronson had the last laugh, however, when the gazebo lasted almost twenty years.

The family's other great friend was Henry David Thoreau. He had a reputation for being surly, but children adored him. He led them on trips into the woods to explore. Louisa and her friends recalled many boating trips with Thoreau on Walden Pond. He would play his flute, literally charming birds out of the trees.

Thoreau was a great friend of Emerson's, working as his handyman and even moving into the house when Emerson traveled to Europe. Emerson's wife, Lidian, was an attractive woman and Thoreau admired her greatly. They met for the first time when Thoreau spied her through a window and
threw her a poem attached to a small bouquet of flowers. There is no evidence that their relationship was ever anything more than friendship, although some biographers have speculated that it was.

Henry's cabin at Walden Pond is justly famous as the subject of
Walden
, his reflections about living simply. He wanted to live away from society and learn what nature had to teach him. Bronson helped him build the cabin on Emerson's land. Louisa and her friends were frequent visitors. Its remote location made it the perfect place for a fictional assignation and possibly a hiding place for a fugitive slave.

Thoreau was arrested for nonpayment of taxes by the sheriff and tax collector Sam Staples and spent one night in jail before his tax was paid by an unknown person. He wrote about this night in his essay “Civil Disobedience.” This event took place several months after my story, but I could not resist including it—what better alibi for Henry David Thoreau than his infamous night in jail?

Fred Llewellyn was based on a composite of two people in Louisa's life. She had a distant cousin who came to stay with them. He and Louisa were companions and he described her at the most beautiful runner he had ever seen. He adored the entire family and even wrote a memoir about them. He grew up to be a respected doctor and a lifelong friend of Louisa's. As an adult, Louisa recalled another boy, unnamed, who went away to school and came back “so big and handsome . . . I could not recover myself for several minutes. Blushingly I
agreed to go boating and berrying and all the rest of it again.” She goes on to say she never went and a few weeks later he died of fever and Louisa never saw him again. Combining these two characters made for a fun companion for Louisa as she solves the mystery and hints at a sad end for Fred.

The presence of a fugitive slave in Concord drives this story. The Alcotts were vocal abolitionists, protesters against slavery. They were active in the Underground Railroad, a secret organization that smuggled slaves out of the South to the Northern states or Canada. It was illegal to aid fugitive slaves in 1846, and the Alcotts could have gone to jail.

Louisa recalled a man named George who stayed with them for a week. The work of the Railroad was shrouded in secrecy, so we don't know where the Alcotts would have hidden him. Since the barn dated back to the American Revolution, I took the liberty of adding a secret room where George can hide.

Where there are fugitive slaves, there are mysteries and secrets and, best of all, sinister slave catchers. The reward for an educated slave could easily be $1,000 (in today's currency that would be $30,000). Aside from his name, in this story George is as fictional as Finch, the man chasing him.

Finally, the character of Miss Whittaker was based on stories of young women who flocked to the Transcendentalist philosophers to listen eagerly to their pronouncements. After my story takes place, one such woman, very attractive and well-to-do, appeared in Bronson's life, no doubt giving Abba a
few worrisome moments. Miss Whittaker is my invention, and as far as I know, Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau were never victimized by a confidence scheme.

Louisa died at the age of fifty-six from a stroke, outliving her younger sisters and her mother. She never married. She did get to travel to Europe several times, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Little Women
is still one of the most beloved books in American literature. How surprised Louisa would be to learn that her sketches about her childhood still resonate with so many readers nearly 150 years later. Louisa gave Jo March, her fictional counterpart, this line, which proved to be prophetic: “I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous, that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream.”

T
o learn about Louisa's life, you should read
Little Women
. Her posthumously published first novel,
The Inheritance
, is also readily available. And do yourself a favor and read her thrillers, collected in
Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott
and
A Marble Woman: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott
.

There are several excellent biographies of Louisa that I would recommend.

Susan Cheever's biography,
Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography
(Simon and Schuster, 2010), is a breezy examination of Louisa's life from the perspective of the child of a famous writer. Eve LaPlante is a member of the Alcott family and considers Louisa's relationship with Marmee in
Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother
(Free Press, 2012). John Matteson won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for
Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
(W. W. Norton and Co, 1997), which focuses on Louisa's father.

Two other biographies that I found very useful were Harriet Reisen's
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
(Picador, 2009) and Madeleine B. Stern's Louisa May Alcott (Northeastern, 1950).

In 2009, the PBS series American Masters screened a documentary called
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
. Portions of it are available online. It's wonderful!

If you have the opportunity, you can tour Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, Massachusetts. The house is called Orchard House and it is next door to Hillside. The Alcotts left Hillside to move to Boston. Several years later they returned to Concord and bought Orchard House, which is now the Louisa May Alcott museum. Many of the scenes in
Little Women
are set in Orchard House. Ralph Waldo Emerson's nearby house is also a museum.

I
love writing about fascinating young women, perhaps because I have two “little women” of my own. Rowan and Margaux are a constant inspiration.

Tanya Lee Stone gave me the benefit of her insights into the historical lives of interesting women. Patricia Reilly Giff shared her library and offered generous support of my interpretation of Louisa May Alcott.

My critique group is my rock, always. Sari Bodi, Christine Pakkala, and Karen Swanson—many thanks for your tough critiques.

The Chronicle team is always wonderful. Thank you to my editor, Victoria Rock, who has the knack of asking the right questions. Taylor Norman is always helpful both on the editing and technical sides. Sara Schneider designed the book and the exciting cover. Lara Starr, Stephanie Wong, and Jaime Wong are my go-to ladies for help with publicity and marketing.

The staff at the Orchard House and the Ralph Waldo Emerson house were very helpful and knowledgeable. Most are volunteers and writers like me would be lost without them.

Last but never least, to my husband, Rob. Our family may not be as idyllic as the Marches', but over the past thirty years we've built a life filled with love and laughter. I write because you make it possible.

photo credit: Melanie Lust

M
ICHAELA
M
AC
C
OLL

studied multidisciplinary history at Vassar College and Yale University, which turns out to be the perfect degree for writing historical fiction. This is her fifth novel. To learn more about Michaela and her work, please visit
www.michaelamaccoll.com
.