Louisa May Alcott (Thorndike Press Large Print Biography) - Hardcover

Susan Cheever is the bestselling author of eleven previous books, including five novels and the memoirs "Note Found in a Bottle" and "Home Before Dark." Her work has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the "Boston Globe" Winship Medal. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author's Guild Council. She writes a weekly column for "Newsday" and teaches in the Bennington College M.F.A. program. She lives in New York City with her family.

“We all loved Little Women and wished we could be Louisa May Alcott, but who would have thought she would be the muse for Susan Cheever's best book? A complex study of an inspiring woman and an enthralling read. Tell all your friends.” Erica Jong

“A moving, inspiring book about one of the most remarkable lives in American literature. Cheever brilliantly lays out Louisa May Alcott’s riveting, often heart-wrenching story, seemingly as unlikely as a fairy tale. Louisa will grip your heart, as Cheever does.” Judy Collins

“What a perfectly wonderful read this is! Alcott, her family, and the special world she inhabited leap forward from these pages in all their full, complex, sometimes infuriating humanity. Wrought with care and commitment, Louisa May Alcott is a tour de force and a book that is impossible to put down.” Maggie Scarf, author of Intimate Partners

"To make the past not only comprehensible, but relevant to the present is a noble task. Louisa May Alcott is at once the story of an extraordinary life, family and milieu. The author of Little Women turns out to be as fascinating to read about as the characters in her novel, and her problems prefigure many of those which women are still sorting out for themselves today. Alcott is both a child of the 19th Century enlightenment and very modern another splendid piece of work with hidden depths by Susan Cheever.” Michael Korda, author of Ulysses S. Grant and Ike

“If you loved Little Women, you will adore this book. Alcott comes to life in this complex, engaging portrait of a beloved American writer and her times. Susan Cheever is our Nancy Mitford.” Jane Stanton Hitchcock, author of Mortal Friends

“Susan Cheever brings the life and art of an iconic American writer to the page with extraordinary sensitivity and insight. This engaging and revealing biography is the perfect companion reader to Louisa May Alcott's novels.” Hilma Wolitzer, author of Summer Reading and Hearts

"Susan Cheever has shone a rare and welcome light on the sometimes mysterious life of Louisa May Alcott. Fans of Little Women will experience again the magic of seeing themselves as writer Jo, crowd-pleaser Beth, poignant Meg or cunning Amy! This is a wonderful book." Marie Brenner, author of Apples and Oranges

“Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott is a grand achievement, one that delivers a portrait of a woman and artist movingly and vividly. Cheever has a wonderful gift for being able to suggest the emotional weight and bearing of her subjects, to bring them fully to life, and to treat them as human beings.” Robert D. Richardson, author of William James and Emerson: The Mind on Fire

“In an amazing display of scholarship, deep knowledge, and searing honesty, Cheever’s biography reveals Alcott’s entire milieu of eminent people and the religious, financial, and societal transitions of the nineteenth century. A great read full of vivid life.” Barbara Goldsmith, Author and historian

“Susan Cheever has immersed herself in the extraordinary life and times of the author of Little Women and brought her fully to life.” A. E. Hotchner --Various

In this thorough personal biography, Cheever (American Bloomsbury) draws on primary sources along with existing Louisa May Alcott studies to put the American novelist s life into historical context, also sharing some striking revelations, hinting, e.g., that Alcott s father, Bronson, may have sexually abused his daughters. Actress/Audie Award nominee Tavia Gilbert s steady voice tells this tale of hard choices with complexity and feeling. While the work is complete and profound, its proliferation of details and digressions sometimes bogs it down. Further, Cheever devotes nearly half the book to Bronson, essentially casting her book s subject to the sidelines. Recommended for fans of existing Alcott bios as well as for those who liked Kelly O Connor McNees s historical novel The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott. --Library Journal