The March: A Novel

By E. L. Doctorow

2005

363 pages / 11 hours and 7 minutes

Fiction

—

I am remarkably tin-eared in regard to the books that fiction lovers actually read. So as I write about one of the more acclaimed writers of our time, I have little idea whether you will have read some of his work, all of his work (unlikely), or never heard of him. If you are in the last category let me introduce you to E. L. Doctorow. He is a masterful writer of historical fiction (if that is even a meaningful category). Here’s a quick rundown.

In 1971 he became famous with The Book of Daniel, which is not about the biblical character but Julian and Ethel Rosenberg. Then he hit the really big time in 1975 with Ragtime, which won the National Book Critics Award and was later made into a not-so-successful movie and a very successful Broadway play. It was also chosen as one of the 10 best novels of the century by the Modern Library editorial board. In 1985 there was Billy Bathgate, and this time it was the National Book Critics Circle Award. Well, you get the idea: lots of awards.

But that is the early Doctorow, and he remained remarkably productive up until his death in 2015. In 2004 there was a collection of five short stories, Sweet Land Stories, which is still one of my favorite collections of short stories of all time. They are haunting and harrowing. In 2009 he wrote Homer and Langley, a fictionalized account of those two famous hoarding brothers. If you don’t remember them, look it up. It is an interesting true story that made a very good book.

But if I have to pick just one post-2000 Doctorow work, it would be The March from 2005. This one also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The march to which the title refers is Sherman’s march to the sea. For many readers there are two basic problems with so-called historical fiction. One problem is it is pretty hard to build tension when readers already know what happened. You can’t really rewrite history, and there are no cliffhangers. The second problem is for those historical buffs who don’t want to be forced to sort out what is history and what is fiction. They generally deem the history more interesting than the fiction and believe the fiction takes too much liberty with the facts.

Doctorow obviously cannot avoid the first problem. But his ripping presentation of Sherman’s fierce, incredibly, destructive campaign is plenty engaging. Of course, the great thing about historical fiction is that you get to mix in made-up characters with the real ones. Doctorow has always been interested in the very personal dimensions of headline-grabbing historical events, and there are plenty of very interesting human beings who, one way or another, will be impacted by this now infamous campaign.

Unless you’re just dead set against historical fiction, I’m quite confident you’ll find this book utterly engrossing. It might even make you go back and read Ragtime. After all, it is one of the great novels of the century.