 | Realistic multidimensional characters, unexpected yet plausible plot turns, and a fearless portrayal of Black life during the Civil War era make So Many Beginnings an exceptional reading experience. Marketed as a reimagining of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the novel far exceeds its original inspiration in scope and authenticity. This storyline follows the March family restarting with their lives as newly emancipated slaves and living in Freedpeople Colony (Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony) in North Carolina. It follows the four daughters through various adventures as the young women grow into adulthood and find their way in a world both welcoming and hostile. |
The story is accessible to any reader, yet we never forget that we are experiencing the unique lives of Black Americans during the 1860s. The four March girls are similar yet distinct from their counterparts in the original novel.
 | Meg teaches at the local school, which receives substandard supplies compared to the schools run by white missionaries. She was educated during her tenure as a slave serving as a companion to the plantation owner’s spoiled daughter—essentially a living doll. When the white daughter got engaged, she blithely informed Meg that she planned to take her along to her new home. Meg was traumatized by this scenario. The war broke out before the selfish daughter could rip Meg away from her own family. |
Later, when a white missionary graciously offers to send Amy to study in Boston, where it’s “perfectly safe,” Meg has a visceral reaction:
“For you. Perfectly safe for you in Boston. You’ve no idea what it would be for [a] fourteen-year-old Black child” … [the Missionary proposing to take Amy away from her family conjured up] the same heart-stopping fear [as in Meg’s past], all while seeming so elated and self-satisfied. All while expecting immediate gratitude, because she didn’t know what it felt like to be on the receiving end of those words, and she never would.
“For you. Perfectly safe for you in Boston. You’ve no idea what it would be for [a] fourteen-year-old Black child” … [the Missionary proposing to take Amy away from her family conjured up] the same heart-stopping fear [as in Meg’s past], all while seeming so elated and self-satisfied. All while expecting immediate gratitude, because she didn’t know what it felt like to be on the receiving end of those words, and she never would.
 | Jo (Joanna) is the clarifying voice of the novel, boldly calling out prejudicial attitudes of the time:
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She writes: The white men credited with … my own Freedpeople Colony at Roanoke … will be legends no matter how [such] colonies turn out, because it is not difficult to imagine heroes who look like all the ones christened before. … What I find curious is the persistent omission of those who by our identity, and because of our heinous oppression, have far grander hopes. Who hopes more for Blacks than we ourselves? … We have no other homes to return to if the grand hope of a colony comes to nothing.
She decides to use her pen to champion the cause of Freedpeople Colony, even knowing it might be in vain: I must, at the back of my mind and to the depth of my spirit, be prepared to have grander hopes than these.
She decides to use her pen to champion the cause of Freedpeople Colony, even knowing it might be in vain: I must, at the back of my mind and to the depth of my spirit, be prepared to have grander hopes than these.
 | Beth (Bethlehem) is a seamstress, repurposing scavenged bits of cloth into beautiful dresses for her sisters and others (instead of excelling in music like the original book). Like her counterpart in Alcott’s novel, she is often ill and considered saintly, though not in her own mind: Beth was not indelibly good or impossibly pure the way some needed to think she was … but she was patient. Despite her calm demeanor, Beth can also be a sharp critic of white privilege. In conversation with a white missionary on Christian scripture, Beth says: |
“It’s difficult to let those who held the scripture hostage and warped it to justify enslavement and treachery stand as authorities on its meaning. I don’t mean to imply that their isn’t a true and certain meaning, but it will rarely be championed by the same people who distorted it in their favor.”
 | We meet Amy (Amethyst) bemoaning the summer heat: it made her scalp swelter and steam like a pot of crabs. Amy is bored because she’s forced to stay home to have the idle childhood none of the other members of her family were allowed when enslaved. She dances to entertain herself, and it is her dance that will become her art (compared to painting in the original novel). It’s wonderful to watch her transform from an indulged child to an accomplished and generous young woman. |
When the novel opens, Lorie (Loren) lives in the Big House, a confiscated mansion. When the March family comes to help celebrate a wedding, he joins Jo observing the dancers, and the two become immediate friends, bantering back and forth, quickly becoming inseparable.
Their friendship is a delight to witness.
Their friendship is a delight to witness.
 | But they do disagree at times. Jo is fully committed to Freedpeople’s Colony, however Lorie is suspicious of the Union’s “generosity” providing the land upon which the March’s and other emancipated families built homes (on a provisional basis). He says: “If it’s up to me, I’ll never spend a night there, in the barracks, or the village. I’ll never accept anything for which the white men can demand my gratitude, when they owe me more than can ever be repaid.” They continue the argument, and Jo says: “You don’t have to agree with me, but you must know what’s a half measure to you is a first step to me. It is only failure if you stop there.” |
Later, Lorie kisses her:
His lips fell gently on hers, and Jo only turned away in time for him to kiss her cheek.
Jo is confused by him romanticizing their friendship: Where she’d been totally free with Lorie before, now she was aware. She would worry from here one, over what she did, and how he might take it.
The eventual resolution of their relationship is natural and completely satisfying—a highlight of the book (much more so than in Alcott's original novel).
His lips fell gently on hers, and Jo only turned away in time for him to kiss her cheek.
Jo is confused by him romanticizing their friendship: Where she’d been totally free with Lorie before, now she was aware. She would worry from here one, over what she did, and how he might take it.
The eventual resolution of their relationship is natural and completely satisfying—a highlight of the book (much more so than in Alcott's original novel).
 | Their mother (Mammy) is a woman of faith determined to keep her family together after a lifetime of seeing slave families ripped apart to serve the needs of white masters. When her husband decides to fight for the Union, she tells the girls: “we must go on enjoying the freedom that made him choose [to fight.] We mustn’t feel guilty wen we find ourselves laughing. Even in the old life, we confounded our captors with our spirit, with the joy we made together. Not because we approved of our enslavement, but because we are resilient people. We hide light in the darkest place, and when others think embers extinguished, we know how to breathe them back into life.” |
Despite her instincts to hold her girls close, they inevitably grow up and find lives independent of her. Mammy has the closing lines of the book: “Go on, my darlings,” she said, while her daughters were still wrapped around her. “Be free.”
The Author’s Note at the end of the book describing her inspiration for writing the novel is worthy of a book club discussion.
She says when people don’t want to remove statues of “enslavers and brutalizers, it isn’t because they are protecting history. They’re protecting their legends, their mythology, the things they’ve decided to believe or at least repeat [and admire], to the exclusion and misrepresentation of whatever really happened [in] a country with an intentionally racist foundation and a recurring pandemic of state violence against Black Americans."
History is fraught with political agendas: we weren’t taught “history” . . . We were taught propaganda, and it was and has been another dehumanizing campaign in the ongoing march of white supremacy. ... History must be searched out, and the people that myths have omitted or misrepresented restored.”
She says when people don’t want to remove statues of “enslavers and brutalizers, it isn’t because they are protecting history. They’re protecting their legends, their mythology, the things they’ve decided to believe or at least repeat [and admire], to the exclusion and misrepresentation of whatever really happened [in] a country with an intentionally racist foundation and a recurring pandemic of state violence against Black Americans."
History is fraught with political agendas: we weren’t taught “history” . . . We were taught propaganda, and it was and has been another dehumanizing campaign in the ongoing march of white supremacy. ... History must be searched out, and the people that myths have omitted or misrepresented restored.”
The Author sees So Many Beginnings as an opportunity “to challenge what we have accepted as history and acknowledge the roles that white supremacy and anti-Blackness play in that conception [and] the mythology we’ve ingested, and which has shaped our national imagination.” It does that and so much more, providing a compelling story and unforgettable characters.
Marketed as a Young Adult novel, the book suffers from none of the melodrama or histrionics that so often plague books for younger audiences, and will be enjoyable to adults.
Sharply written and thoroughly enjoyable, So Many Beginnings is a five-star read. Highly recommended.
Marketed as a Young Adult novel, the book suffers from none of the melodrama or histrionics that so often plague books for younger audiences, and will be enjoyable to adults.
Sharply written and thoroughly enjoyable, So Many Beginnings is a five-star read. Highly recommended.
Also in the Remixed Classics series: Most Ardently
Read more fiction deftly exploring prejudice: The Bone Marrow Thieves, The Bruising of Qilwa,
A Closed and Common Orbit, Light from Uncommon Stars, Pledging Season, Remnant Population
Read other books on US racism:
How to be an Anti-Racist, Broken Heart of America, The Afterlife of Malcolm X
Read more about political propaganda: Stories are Weapons
Read more fiction deftly exploring prejudice: The Bone Marrow Thieves, The Bruising of Qilwa,
A Closed and Common Orbit, Light from Uncommon Stars, Pledging Season, Remnant Population
Read other books on US racism:
How to be an Anti-Racist, Broken Heart of America, The Afterlife of Malcolm X
Read more about political propaganda: Stories are Weapons
