No short review can do this book justice, given its dozens of characters and multiple narratives, let alone the shifts between intricate set-piece details and panoramic scenes of war and destruction. It is1864, the American Civil War, is raging, and Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army of 60,000 is on the march through the South. It is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign, accumulating freed slaves and white sympathisers along the way. The army is like a living beast, tentacles snaking this way and that. Through the violence and destruction, Doctorow presents us with a mosaic of characters from wildly different points of view. There is Pearl, the beautiful freed slave girl, mistaken by Sherman himself for a boy and taken in as a drummer; Wrede Sartorius, a clinical surgeon genius; Arly and Will, Rebel soldiers who change sides as the need arises; Emily Thompson, daughter of a Southern judge, are cast loose in the conflict. Sherman himself is masterfully drawn, a man all too aware of his responsibilities, wrestling with the good of ending slavery while destroying so much in the process. The March sticks close to history, so the uprooting of lives and societies is lent great weight. The march of Sherman’s army becomes such an all-consuming entity that the General wonders if he can ever experience feelings of such purpose again. Equal in scope and execution to Doctorow’s magnificent Ragtime, The March is one of the finest novels I have had the pleasure to read.

Robbie Egan is from Readings Carlton