This book is for every young girl who read Little Women and felt a kinship with the March sisters, especially Jo March and wondered how much of Jo and Laurie's ill-fated romance came from Alcott's own experiences. You can now indulge in the lovingly crafted, fact-based speculation offered in The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott.

The first step of the journey towards writing this novel began for McNees when she read Martha Saxton's  book, Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography. She pored through the library volume of the biography so many times, she eventually bought her own copy. From there she searched out other biographies of the novelist, eventually coming  to the conclusion that they all portrayed her differently. For McNees, the driving question became- who was the real Louisa May Alcott? In her quest to understand Alcott, McNees came to a discovery about herself; she wanted to write and she wanted to write about Alcott. The final key came from a question posed in a memoir written by Julian Hawthorne (son of Nathaniel Hawthorne and neighbor of the Alcotts). He pondered, " Did she ever have a love affair? We never knew. Yet how could a nature so imaginative, romantic and passionate escape it?". This, along with a brief yet vaguely documented period in Louisa's youth during the Alcotts time in Walpole, New Hampshire became the groundwork for creating a romantic "lost summer" in Louisa's life.

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott begins when the Alcotts take up residence in the Walpole home of Louisa's uncle, in 1855. Due to Bronson Alcott's devotion to his Transcendentalist philosophy and the resulting aversion to work for profit, the Alcott family fortunes were mostly dependant on the kindness and charity of family and friends. The way in which McNees uses the observations in Alcott's journals and letters to relate her feelings about their family circumstances and how it shapes her future decisions gives the reader a wonderful insight into some of the more compelling questions concerning Alcott.

The novel is also rich with passages regarding the literary influences in Louisa's life, especially those she had a personal relationship with- Whitman, Thoreau, and  Emerson, whose classic Leaves of Grass premiered that summer of 1855. McNees shows what a truly complex and interesting person Louisa was, a true enigma of her time- but at the same time reveals her as a real life woman, complete with insecurities, vulnerabilities and dreams.

The character of Joseph Singer, the love of Louisa's "lost summer", is perfectly crafted as perhaps the only man  Louisa could have allowed herself to love- no matter how briefly. A man who understood and appreciated a woman of Louisa's drive and intensity- loving her because of, rather than instead of, her untraditional attitudes. The strength of both their devotion and sacrifice to and for each other is heartbreakingly poignant, but never maudlin or saccharine.

For all of us who have ever fell in love with a novel or the collected work of a particular author and wondered how much of themselves they consciously or unconsciously shared, Kelly O'Conner McNees has shown us that it is quite possible to glimpse into the authors mind ...and heart. Even one as carefully guarded as Miss Alcott's appears to have been.

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is a must read for all Alcott fans.  Although,  if you have never had the chance to enjoy her work, it remains a beautifully crafted story of love, devotion and the lasting impact of the brief, seemingly insignificant moments that occur in our lives and the far-reaching effect they can have.

Review by Brenda Seward

Simple Pleasures Books & Gifts

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The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is Kelly O'Conner McNees first novel. Released in April 2010, it is available through Penguin Books.