The Little Women Letters
reviewed By Gabrielle Pantera
Exclusive interview with author Gabrielle Donnelly and a review of her new book The Little Women Letters, a bond of sisters that spans generations
“Orchard House, the house in Concord, Massachusetts, where Louisa May Alcott lived while she was writing Little Women, was her model for the March family home,” says The Little Women Letters author Gabrielle Donnelly. “The house is now a Little Women museum. It’s as magical a place as it sounds. Walking inside is like stepping into the pages of Little Women itself.”
The idea for The Little Women Letters came from an editor at Michael Joseph who asked, what would happen if Jo March’s great-great-granddaughter found a cache of her ancestor’s letters? Various writers were invited to put forward a sample first chapter and an outline of a book. “I was lucky enough to get the gig, which was a completely lovely one,” says Donnelly.
Donnelly’s novel evokes the love and nurturing nature of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The trials and tribulations that are inherent with families and sisters in particular are woven beautifully through out the novel. The bond between the sisters in the novel will make even those who don’t have sisters want one or two.
In The Little Women Letters, Lulu Atwater is the middle sister. She’s close to her sisters and parents, but her life isn’t going as planned…if she had a plan. Older sister Emma loves her career and is planning her wedding. Younger sister Sophie is an actress whose career is starting to take off. Fed up with dead-end jobs, Lulu realizes that she needs to get her life together. Lulu finds some old letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. Lulu gets caught up Jo’s life lesson. Can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu figure out who she wants to be?
Donnelly says she read lots of Louisa May Alcott to get the nineteenth century parts right. “She’s good on domestic detail. As it turned out, the modern parts needed just as much research as the old, because they were set in London where I haven’t lived for very many years. Life and language there has changed immeasurably since I left. For modern accuracy, I relied heavily on the gimlet-eyed observation of a young London friend called Harriet, now known to me as Harriet The Spy. I sent her each chapter as I wrote it and she sorted me out good and proper.”
Donnelly says she was lucky she didn’t burn down the house by accident, she was so preoccupied with writing. “I was given a very tight deadline and all normal life was suspended for the duration. The garden languished. No one got any Christmas cards. I’d thought I was doing quite well with cooking supper at least, until my husband asked me, most pathetically, if there was any way I could please consider maybe preparing something that was not baked chicken.”
Donnelly lives in Los Angeles. She was born in London of Irish descent. Her website is www.gabrielledonnellyauthor.com. The Little Women House website is louisamayalcott.org.
The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Hardcover, 368 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (June 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9781451617184.
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