The Other Alcott
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As I delved deeper into creating my story, I discovered I needed more information on Victorian life, such as steamship and rail travel, so I studied everything from ship menus to railroad timetables. The Seattle Public Library provided countless books about the Impressionists and the Salon, art exhibition catalogs, and out-of-print books about various women artists from the era. I scoured antique maps of Concord, Boston, Rome, London, and Paris and used Google Maps to virtually “walk” some of the neighborhoods that May trod, all while sitting at my computer. Honestly, writing historical fiction must have been very, very, very time consuming before the Internet came along. Sometimes I stretched the truth, such as when May tries to reach Hunt’s studio during the Great Boston Fire of 1872. In fact, I don’t know where May was during the fire, but Louisa writes about her own experiences watching the conflagration, so I decided to put May in Boston too because the fire significantly impacted her art studies.
Photo Credit: author’s photo of her bulletin board with Beacon Hill houses and Josiah Johnson Hawes’s photo, Snow Scene on the Northeast Corner of the Boston Common
Q: Describe how you wove fictional elements into a real story.
A: When I needed an activity to engage characters, I turned to artifacts and some quintessential Victorian activities and let my imagination loose. For example, how would I set up the moment when May begins to doubt a future with Joshua Bishop? An old photograph by Josiah Johnson Hawes titled Snow Scene on the Northeast Corner of the Boston Common made me realize I could literally put my two characters on a collision course with a sleigh. When I needed to make May realize how much she cares for Ernest Nieriker, I capitalized on the Victorian bicycle craze and stuck the poor fellow atop a big wheeler, sending him on a bumpy ride. Perhaps one of my favorite historical details came to me as I was researching the Boston Public Gardens and learned the history behind the city’s beloved Swan Boats. Although to the best of my knowledge Louisa never wrote a letter endorsing the widow who wanted to run the family’s Swan Boat business after the death of her husband, it seemed like a cause Louisa would have wholeheartedly embraced, so I worked it into one of her letters to May.
Photo Credit: author’s photo of Swan Boats in 2016
Reading Group Discussion Questions
1. At the end of Part 1, when Alice tells May that “a thinking woman . . . sounds dangerous,” what does she mean? What made a “thinking woman” dangerous in the late 1800s?
2. How does May change over the course of the story? What moments mark critical turning points in her journey?
3. What is your perception of the relationship between Louisa and May? How did Louisa’s financial support of May affect their feelings toward each other?
4. What were the challenges that women faced while studying art? How were these challenges different in Boston than in Europe?
5. When May marries Ernest suddenly, do you think it’s because, as Louisa says, “she’s unmoored?” What do you think contributed to May’s quick decision to marry?
6. Louisa appears to send conflicting messages about May’s marriage to Ernest—she discourages May from doing it, but then sends a substantial check as a wedding present—how do you think she felt about May’s decision to marry?
7. Between their beliefs on education, abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and other causes (Bronson was also vegetarian), the Alcotts were viewed as radicals and seen as unconventional. What do you think it was like to grow up as part of this family? As the youngest family member, how difficult do you think it was for May to grow up in this family? In what ways does she seem to forge her own identity, separate from that of her family?
8. What do you think it would be like to have a family member write a thinly-veiled account of your life? Since May doesn’t think Little Women was a favorable portrayal of her, how would that shape her relationship with her family?
9. Louisa struggles with the tension that exists between the success of Little Women and feeling trapped by being famous for something that she didn’t really want to write. Did you empathize with her feelings? What would it be like to become famous for something you resented?
10. At the end of the novel, the author provides a postscript with more information about all of the characters. Was there anything in there that surprised you?
11. Of the two sisters, Louisa is infinitely more famous. Were you surprised by anything you learned about her in this novel? Were any of your previous impressions of her challenged by this new information?
12. Louisa remains dutiful to her family to the end and continues to write stories that the market welcomes so that she earns money to support her family, while Mary Cassatt breaks from the establishment and creates work that satisfies her. Which character can you relate to more? Do you understand the motivations behind both women?
Alcott Trivia
1. May Alcott gave Daniel Chester French his first art supplies and encouraged him to try his hand at sculpture. French went on to become known for creating the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., and always credited May with starting his career.
2. May Alcott taught an early form of art therapy at Dr. Wilbur’s Asylum in Syracuse, New York, in December of 1860.
3. Louisa May Alcott, an ardent suffragist, was the first woman ever to vote in Concord, Massachusetts. She voted for a school board position.
4. Following her illustrations in Little Women, May published a series of landscapes in the book Concord Sketches, in 1869. In the preface to accompany May’s artwork, Louisa wrote:
These sketches, from a student’s portfolio, claim no merit as works of art, but are only valuable as souvenirs, which owe their chief charm to the associations that surround them, rather than to any success in the execution of a labor of love, prompted by the natural desire to do honor to one’s birthplace.
This unflattering description of her sister’s work prompted me to explore the tension that might have existed between these two ambitious women.
5. Louisa served as a Civil War nurse in Union Hotel Hospital during 1862 but resigned in early 1863 due to contracting typhoid fever. She wrote about this experience in Hospital Sketches.
6. Using the pseudonym Tribulation Periwinkle, Louisa authored a letter to The Springfield Republican newspaper in which she contemplated using a garden engine (the Victorian version of a garden hose) to spray her fans who dared to visit uninvited.
7. Bronson and Abigail Alcott were firm believers in the importance of physical exercise for young women, so they encouraged their daughters to learn to swim and run around Concord. Now every September, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, hosts an annual road race to celebrate Louisa’s love of running.
8. The well-known essayist Henry David Thoreau served as a private academic tutor to the Alcott sisters.
9. In the late 1980s or early 1990s, two professors discovered The Inheritance, a novel written by Louisa when she was 18 years old. This manuscript, now believed to be Louisa’s first novel, had been miscataloged within the Alcott collection of family documents at Harvard University’s Houghton Library and remained unknown to scholars for over 150 years.
10. May’s remains are somewhere in a common grave in Montrouge Cemetery on the outskirts of Paris, France. Back in 1879, graves were secured for only 10 years unless a family member paid an additional amount, and although Louisa always intended to bring May’s remains to America, Louisa was unable to accomplish this before her own death in 1888; however, she did erect a headstone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, to memorialize her sister.
Photo Credit: author’s photo of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts
May Alcott’s Illustrations
These images can be found online at Harvard University’s Houghton Library.
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Fantastic Praise for The Other Alcott
“An atmospheric and engagi
ng read, The Other Alcott widens the Alcott family spotlight to position the charismatic, artistic May as a rightful equal to famed Louisa. Hooper skillfully draws the reader into the complicated, competitive dynamic between two sisters determined to master their work and love each other.”
—Joy Callaway, author of The Fifth Avenue Artists Society and Secret Sisters
“In The Other Alcott, Elise Hooper has crafted a sweeping and deeply personal tale of a young woman’s struggle to emerge out of her famous sister’s shadow and define herself as an artist and an independent adventurer. You will never look at Little Women or the Alcott family the same way again.”
—Laurie Lico Albanese, author of Stolen Beauty
“With its globe-trotting, sibling rivalry, old-fashioned courtship, art-world intrigue, and one very difficult choice, Elise Hooper’s thoroughly modern debut gives a fresh take on one of literature’s most beloved families. To read this book is to understand why the women behind Little Women continue to cast a long shadow on our imaginations and dreams. Hooper is a writer to watch!”
—Elisabeth Egan, author of A Window Opens
“Elise Hooper’s debut novel, The Other Alcott, is a delightful, moving book about the strength of women, the impetus of creativity, and the indelible bond between sisters. If you loved Little Women (or even if you didn’t), this engaging take on the real-life relationship between the Alcott sisters will fascinate and inspire. More than ever, we need books like this—in celebration of a woman overlooked by history, one whose story helps shed light on our own contemporary search for love, identity, and meaning.”
—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The House Girl
Credits
Cover photographs: © Malgorzata Maj / Arcangel (woman); Alamy Images, © Getty Images and © Shutterstock (details)
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE OTHER ALCOTT. Copyright © 2017 by Elise Hooper. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition September 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-264534-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-264533-3
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