Book Review

A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott

A Long Fatal love Chase is a Gothic thriller novel by Louisa May Alcott that was written in 1866, but not published until 1995. Her publisher asked her to write something for serialization, and when she sent him this, he went “Um…. Maybe less… sensational?” and summarily rejected a shorter draft.   Alcott then went on to grudgingly write Little Women which became super popular (as you know). But she really really enjoyed writing the lurid stuff, and it shows.

ALFLC is the story of Rosamund, who lives on an island with her grandfather. He sort of vaguely tolerates her, while she’s super bored, and says, “I’d gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom.” Then Philip Tempest shows up. He’s hot, he’s mysterious, he’s dangerous, and it’s all ridiculous sparks between the two of them. She knows he isn’t a saint, but marries him, and off the go on his yacht to travel and (presumably, this was written in 1886) boink in all corners of the globe.

Of course, he’s already married. OF COURSE HE IS. When Rosamund finds this out, she peaces out so fast there are skid marks on the rug. The bulk of the book is Rosamund roaming the earth and finding a hiding spot, but Phillip finds her eventually, cajoles her into saying she’ll go back to him, which she does just enough to put his guard down, and then she rabbits again. She finds allies of various levels of usefulness, but the end result is her death. (That’s not a spoiler. IT IS IN THE TITLE.)

There a lot to unpack, but the first thing I want to touch on is that Alcott clearly had FUN writing this. Little Women drags – I’ve never finished it, because the prose is just plod, plod, plod. This rips along like the author just couldn’t put her pen down.

Alcott had just come off a tour of Europe (she started as a paid companion, but found her employer to be too fucking annoying to tolerate and finished on her own). A lot of the “chase” portion is based on running around Europe and hiding in Paris or Germany or (naturally) a convent.

A lot of what happens to Rosamund is the direct result of misogyny.  Every time she tries to leave Phillip behind her, he is able to use society’s expectations of women and of the men who say they love them to hunt her down.  At one point he literally pulls a “What can I say, bitches be crazy” gambit and it works.  He’s just so in love with her he just can’t help it, you guys.  He just can’t.

While the set up is typical Gothic maiden-in-distress, Rosamund is not a typical damsel.  She wants freedom in the great wide somewhere, and she gets a version of it.  But even before her relationship with Philip goes off the rails, she shows gumption and sass and makes it clear this won’t be the way he wants it to be.

During their year of bliss, Philip engages in what Gavin de Becker in The Gift of Fear ( A ) would call a “pre-incident indicator”:

“Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?”

Rosamund, however, tells him straight up how she’s going to play her part in this:

“Go away and–”

He interrupted with a triumphant laugh, “Die as heroines always do, tender slaves as they are.”

“No, live and forget you”, was the unexpected reply.

She tries, but he’s an obsessed stalker.  Alcott knows he’s a stalker and terrible,  and he leaves a trail of destroyed lives in the wake of his pursuit of this woman.  He tells her that sure, he’ll leave her alone as long she never tries to marry someone else, which is unreasonable.  She does plan to marry someone else, and he destroys their relationship with the aforementioned “bitches be crazy.”  She hides in a convent, and he turns one of the priests against her.  He’ll send her notes saying, “Meet me as a friend and fear nothing.”

UH I’D BE SCARED IF MY STALKER PSYCHO EX SENT ME THAT.

What Alcott was getting at, and what I loved, was that Rosamund is about agency.  She may not have a lot of choices open to her, but she doesn’t sit down and just wait for shit to happen.  She keeps telling Philip through words and actions that she’s not here for any of it.  Even though this is a thriller, Alcott still weaves in feminism and agency and maybe why you shouldn’t lock girls up on an island for their entire adolescence.

There’s a theory out in the wild that Jane Eyre came about because Charlotte Bronte hated Jane Austen’s Emma and wanted to explore the idea of what would happen to a character like Jane Fairfax if she wasn’t able to hitch herself to the Frank Churchill lifeboat. A Long Fatal Love Chase has, at it’s heart, the question of “What if the heroine didn’t find out about the mad wife in the attic?” Assuming these theories are true, this is one of those recursive fanfic loops that have existed from time immemorial, so don’t let anyone tell you that because it’s fanfic doesn’t make it not worthy of attention. Basically all of Shakespeare is fanfic.

I’m sad that this didn’t get published when she wrote it, but this way she got on the New York Times bestseller list, so that’s something.   I’m also kind of vindicated in my feeling that Little Women is boring- it IS boring, and annoyed the author much as it annoyed me, so that’s a thing.  Apparently Alcott had a nice sideline writing her “blood and thunder” stories, so she got things that she enjoyed writing published, even as she was fielding the “JO AND LAURIE 5-EVAR” letters (and digging in and marrying Laurie off to Amy just to piss people off, a decision I totally respect).

In the 1994 Little Women movie (With Winona Ryder) I remember Jo gleefully writing her thrillers, and Professor Baehr asking her why she wrote ~those things~ and she’s like “Dude, they sell” and he’s all “But you don’t really want to write these!”  Well, Jo’s author did.  So suck it, Baehr.

You can also get a collection of 4 other Alcott blood and thunder tales, Behind a Mask, which looks amazing.  This book, meanwhile, totally re-aligned my thoughts on Alcott as an author, and I’m excited at reading more of her fun stuff.

 

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A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott

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  1. Emma Barry says:

    ALFLC is so fascinating book! It’s a legit thriller but it’s also a parody of a certain kind of romance. It’s creepy but it’s also sort of funny. I really enjoyed it. But I love, LOVE Behind a Mask, which is why I was commenting. If you liked ALFLC, you have to read it. It’s statements about femininity and performance still have tons of resonance and it comments intertextually on Jane Eyre and other governess romances–which probably isn’t much of a recommendation but it’s fun, I swear and I’d love to read a review of it here!

  2. Kate Vinée says:

    There’s also Plots and Counterplots (which might be out of print?). It is a huge amount of fun and Professor Bhaer would hate it with his entire soul. I mean, I mostly enjoy a lot of Alcott’s “moral pap for the young” work, but it’s not nearly as much fun as her sensation stories. And as you say, she clearly did not have as much writing it.

  3. June says:

    Count me in as one of those who found Little Women boring. It took me years to finish it, and I read EVERYTHING back then. Conversely, I really enjoyed Little Men and most of her other books — Eight Cousins, Jack & Jill, etc. They were great. I’ll have to look for this one!

  4. Charissa says:

    Purchased. I cannot wait to read it. There are multiple paperback copies on Amazon with Prime shipping, but I suspect they will be gone later today. Fantastic review, as always, redheadedgirl.

  5. Wonderful review! Thank you so much for bringing this novel to my attention. I love how we’re rediscovering the subversiveness and “up yours” attitude in so much of women’s writing from past times. It’s inspiring.

  6. Leah says:

    Is it REALLY not a spoiler to say she dies? I know the word “Fatal” is in the title, but not having read it myself, it sounds like there could have been some ambiguity as to WHO ultimately the chase proved fatal for… Rosamund or her ex. It still sounds like an interesting story, but unless it’s made abundantly clear in the beginning that Rosamund’s fate is death, I still sort of feel like the impact might have been more had I not known that for a certainty before going into it. Just my two cents. 🙂

  7. Ainsley says:

    I liked Little Women, but I’ve always been more interested in LMA herself. There’s an excellent biography called Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It depicts how LMA was often the sole breadwinner in her large family, and how she wrote to keep the boat afloat, which I found inspiring. We always think of the great authors as being somehow too pure to be sullied by the indignities of money and profit, and Reisen’s bio shows just how wrongheaded that idea is, particularly in regard to LMA. I’m thrilled that much of Louisa May Alcott’s work is making it back into the public consciousness. I like to think she’d be pleased.

  8. Damn. And not available in digital.

  9. Katherine C. says:

    Yasssss!!! I was dragging after staying up most of the night reading, but this totally perked me up! How did I not know about this?! LMA has always been a favorite of mine — both her own work and books about her. My book pimp has been notified, and I CAN’T WAIT to get my hot little hands on this.

  10. RebeccaA says:

    Patrica aka pooks,

    Some of Louisa May Alcott’s are available in digital at project Gutenberg including Behind a Mask but not Long Fatal Love Chase.

  11. Liz Talley says:

    I loved this review! And based on the passion LMA had for this book (as you so well present) I think I’m going to buy it and read it. As for Little Women, there are some things I like about it, namely Laurie and Jo’s relationship, but this review has given me better insight into Alcott’s own struggle as a writer and the reflection of it with Little Women. God bless the lurid novels that sell well 🙂

  12. cleo says:

    Ooh, this sounds like fun. I imprinted on LMA young – I read Little Woman when I was 10 and went on to inhale all of her YA type books. (Interestingly enough, I was never bothered by Amy marrying Laurie, probably because I was so pre-adolescent when I read it that I didn’t care about who married which boring boy).

    I re-read LW when I was like 20 and I was shocked by how boring and goody two shoes-y it was. Ugh. Little Men and Jo’s Boys hold up much better. As does Eight Cousins / Rose in Bloom. And I still reread An Old Fashioned Girl when I need a certain kind of comfort.

  13. Kilian Metcalf says:

    I *never* thought Little Women and its sequels was boring, not as a child, and not as an adult. Jo was so fierce and independent that I adored her. I didn’t care for the other books so much, except for Eight Cousinsand Rose in Bloom. They were every bit as good a their more famous siblings. Girls were rewarded, not punished, for not knowing their place, for wanting more, for being willing to go out and work for it. I don’t care for her thrillers so much, or Gothic novels in general. Just don’t speak to my condition.

    Speaking of fanfic, Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for her fanfic novel March about the experiences of Mr March, father of the little women, during his time as a chaplain in the army during the civil war. I usually bring that up when people are dissing fanfic.

  14. LML says:

    @Leah, I agree with you completely. I read Someone Else’s Love Story without believing the title applied to …the character it applied to…until there were only a couple of chapters left in the book. (A thoroughly wonderful book, by the way.)

    In pre-internet days I had a grand time at massive library and university-sponsored book sales looking for Louisa May Alcott’s long out of print “sensational” titles.

  15. Kate K.F. says:

    Behind the Mask is great because the stories have the feel of Conan Doyle, Poe and Hawthorne with great characters. I highly recommend it and its also a great look at Alcott.

  16. shawnyJ says:

    I have always felt it was some kind of failing of my bookish pre-teen self that I could never get through Little Women. Thank you for verbalizing what I couldn’t. It was boring. I eventually skipped ahead to Beth’s death, then called it a day and went back to Bronte.

  17. Redheadedgirl says:

    AHAHAHAHA @shawnyJ, I totally did the same thing. “God this is boring, when’s Beth gonna die?”

    (Carrie is preparing to fight me to avenge Little Women’s honor.)

  18. Kate says:

    I read this in 2000 and LOVED it and then I lost my copy and then I was sad.

    I love Little Women and am forever delighted in how annoyed LMA was by Jo + Laurie 4EVA fans. Mainly because I love Bhaer. I love him, I love him and Jo, and Iove their whole adorable family. Fight me.

    Also! I have a book called Alternative Alcott which contains “How I Went Out to Service”, “Hospital Sketches”, “Behind A Mask” and others. It has a sketch called “Meg as a Witch” from the second edition of Little Women on the cover. Looks like Bertha Mason. It is amazing.

  19. CarrieS says:

    That’s right, RedheadedGirl. Pistols at dawn.

  20. Kilian Metcalf says:

    @Carrie S: I’ll be your second. I reread Little Women frequently and cry every time.

  21. Meredith says:

    Kate: YES! Once he gets past moralizing at Jo and just Lets Jo Be Jo, I looooooove some Bhaer! He *does* stuff, while Laurie just complains about being friendzoned and is idly rich all over the place. He and Amy deserve one another.

  22. LauraL says:

    I was in the Jo+Laurie 4 Evah camp back in the day. Jo was most definitely one of my heroines as a young reader.

    I had no idea the suspense novels existed! Thanks for the heads up and review.

  23. Lora says:

    I loved the Winona Ryder/Christian Bale movie but I never slogged through the rest of the book despite repeated attempts. This is more my speed. I’m in! Thanks of reviewing it. It has that Jane Eyre strong woman bent I enjoy with the whole retro Victoria Holt I dug in high school. That’s catnip!

  24. Christine says:

    Though I dearly love Little Women (well honestly most of Little Women) I never could stand Professor Bhaer. I think ALFLC illustrates exactly why he never sat well with me. He is all about telling Jo what is appropriate for her to read, write etc. Louisa May Alcott’s ALFLC is exactly the kind of book he told Jo was trash and not worth her efforts. He even tells her not to read the newspapers at one point I believe. I never could stomach his paternal misogyny, as if books too passionate were not appropriate and worthy of dainty high minded women. In real life LMA was turning out some real pot boilers and I say kudos to her. Bhaer always struck me as the kind of husband whom would “Yellow Wallpaper” his wife- purely for her own good of course. If LMA had married a Bhaer we wouldn’t have this book.

  25. Mina Lobo says:

    Fun review! I’d been looking to “improve myself” with some classics and *nearly* bought Little Women but purchased this book instead. (To date, still haven’t read LW, and knowing that Alcott wrote it to pay the bills but hated it herself doesn’t incline me to read it ever.) Dig your connection to Jane Eyre–I saw a lot of Jane’s gumption in Rosamund. Old Phil was pretty cray–esp. at the very end. I was all, Dang, he’s chasing girlfriend into the great beyond? Take a pill, dude! But you know, as OTT as his behavior was, it’s unfortunately all too real in some folks. ::shudders::

    In a related story, y’all ever see a Britcom called Hunderby? It’s a parody of all that Gothic Innocent-Heroine/Batshit-Crazy-Chick-in-the-Attic business, written by truly brilliant comic Julia Davis, and available via Hulu Plus. Hush-hay, hush-ho!

  26. […] Red’s review of Louisa May Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase. […]

  27. Jo says:

    Gotta say, I prefer the strong heroines like Meg and Amy March to the cliche “sassy” loudnouths like Rosamond and Jo that litter women’s lit. But who knows, maybe I’ll enjoy the story anyway.

  28. Kent Bicknell says:

    After 21 years it is fun to see that readers are still discovering and enjoying this “lurid tale of blood & thunder” as Ms Alcott would have categorized it.

    If you want to find more about the “discovery” and publication of this lost thriller, wikipedia does a pretty good job relating it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Fatal_Love_Chase

    Many of her other gothic thrillers are excellent (though almost all are short stories rather than a novel like ALFLC is).

    Kent Bicknell, Editor (in 1995) of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE

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