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A review by caaleros
A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
If you're a fan of the sensation fiction of Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon, you need to read Louisa May Alcott's contributions to the genre under the name A.M. Barnard. She writes the most wild stories, and I cannot decide if it is because she's an American writer and she can get away with more, or if this is just her style. That being said, this novel wasn't actually published during her lifetime, so it was still too shocking for an 19th century American readership.
"A Long Fatal Love Chase" was written 2 years before "Little Woman" was published. This novel is occupied with some of the same themes that make an appearance in her shorter sensation stories: primarily, the struggle of power between man and woman. I read another review that interpreted this story as a romance, and the chase as an erotic foreplay. I would strongly disagree. The chase in this book is not part of the romantic appeal, it is the desperate flight of a woman away from an evil man who she was romantically connected to. She remembers times she was happy and longs to go back to that innocence, but she chooses the difficult path and runs. He stalks her throughout the entire continent and her flight is for personal autonomy as much as it is for morality. He calls for her to submit to his will and then "he'll be her slave." I believe that Alcott is pointing out the utter stupidity of this patriarchal rhetoric.
Rosamond was an interesting heroine who climbs out windows, walks along roofs, and flees across the continent. She was very capable, and I loved the unlikely female friendships she develops along the way. Tempest is a typical sociopathic sensation villain and I hated him. Alcott connects him to the Mephistopheles from his first appearance, and that satanic imagery continues throughout the rest of the story to be contrasted with the pure priest character introduced in the second half of the book. This allegory seems to be the focus of the story more than capturing a type of "realism."
This book is quite the page-turner. It does get repetitive due to the structure of the book, but it is such a quick read and it kept me on the edge of my seat. The suspense never lets up once it gets going. Now I have to track down the rest of Alcott's sensation fiction because, although it has a lot of the sensation tropes, it still manages to feel like it's doing something different.
"A Long Fatal Love Chase" was written 2 years before "Little Woman" was published. This novel is occupied with some of the same themes that make an appearance in her shorter sensation stories: primarily, the struggle of power between man and woman. I read another review that interpreted this story as a romance, and the chase as an erotic foreplay. I would strongly disagree. The chase in this book is not part of the romantic appeal, it is the desperate flight of a woman away from an evil man who she was romantically connected to. She remembers times she was happy and longs to go back to that innocence, but she chooses the difficult path and runs. He stalks her throughout the entire continent and her flight is for personal autonomy as much as it is for morality. He calls for her to submit to his will and then "he'll be her slave." I believe that Alcott is pointing out the utter stupidity of this patriarchal rhetoric.
Rosamond was an interesting heroine who climbs out windows, walks along roofs, and flees across the continent. She was very capable, and I loved the unlikely female friendships she develops along the way. Tempest is a typical sociopathic sensation villain and I hated him. Alcott connects him to the Mephistopheles from his first appearance, and that satanic imagery continues throughout the rest of the story to be contrasted with the pure priest character introduced in the second half of the book. This allegory seems to be the focus of the story more than capturing a type of "realism."
This book is quite the page-turner. It does get repetitive due to the structure of the book, but it is such a quick read and it kept me on the edge of my seat. The suspense never lets up once it gets going. Now I have to track down the rest of Alcott's sensation fiction because, although it has a lot of the sensation tropes, it still manages to feel like it's doing something different.