Louisa May Alcott's 1869 novel "Little Women" focused on the March family as they dealt with their father's absence during the American Civil War. That book told us little about Mr. March or his activities during the war. He appears only briefly when his wife travels to Washington, DC, as he recovers from an illness.

Geraldine Brooks fills in the details of the father's life in her 2005 novel "March."

Alcott based much of the March family story on her own childhood. Brooks chose to incorporate much of Alcott's father into the March father, Amos Bronson Alcott. Like Amos, March was an abolitionist who worked as a traveling salesman in his youth. And, like Alcott, March befriended many of the literary intellectuals of New England, such as  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.

Although she based the character on a real person, Brooks invented many of the incidents in March's life. While traveling in the south, he befriended and lived for a year with plantation owner August Clement. March grew close to many of the Clement's slaves but was banished when caught teaching them to read. He reconnected with one of them - Grace Clement - while serving as a Chaplain in the Union Army years later.

Mr. March writes numerous letters to his wife during the war, but he omits brutal battle details and stories of his mistakes.

Brooks brings life to a minor character of a classic book. She presents March with moral conflicts that challenge his views of the world. His responses are flawed, which gives depth to his character. His idealism leads him to serve as a chaplain, but his abrasive manner, his infidelity, and his cowardice offset that idealism.

Grace is the most interesting character in the novel. She was a literate slave woman who had a chance to escape when Union soldiers captured Clement's plantation. Still, a complex sense of loyalty caused her to remain and care for her abusive former master.

"March" may not become the classic novel from which it drew inspiration, but it is thoughtful and inspiring.