GREAT OR NOTHING

The March family marches on…in 1942.

Taking Beth, Jo, Meg, and Amy as point-of-view characters, the authorial quartet begins this spinoff with Beth dead but contributing free verse observations between chapters and the surviving sisters estranged. In the least developed storyline, Meg stays home, flirting briefly with being unfaithful to absent fellow teacher and beau John. Jo stalks off to work as a riveter in an airplane factory and (confirming the speculations of generations of nuance-sensitive readers) discovers her queerness. True to character, Amy lies about both her age and her admission to art school in Montreal so she can secretly join the Red Cross and is shipped off to London—where she runs into and falls for wounded airman Laurie. Though linked to the original by names, themes (notably the outwardly calm, saintly Marmee’s admission of inner anger, which is reflected here in her daughters), and incidents that are similar in type, there are enough references to period details to establish a weak sense of setting. Giving Meg and Amy chances to reflect on their racial attitudes through the introduction of a Japanese American student and, in a single quick encounter, a Black serviceman feels perfunctory given the otherwise all-White cast. Jo’s slower ride to self-knowledge, though heavily foreshadowed, comes off as more authentic. If the sisters’ eventual fence-mending is predictable, it’s also refreshingly acerbic.

Not so much one story as three (with a spectral onlooker); fans of the original may enjoy picking out the tweaks.