No, I can't remember. There is no remembering. It's always now.
Are you crying?
Yes. Because it's always now. What did I just say?
It's always now.
Yes.
Albion, in tears, held his bar and nodded. Then he rocked himself back and forth, back and forth. It's always now, he said. It's always now."
This subtle, almost elegiac exchange is miles removed from the more epic moments in The March -- the battle of Bentonville, the razing of Columbia, the great diaspora of the slaves -- but it's exactly in such unexpected, almost tangential scenes that the novel comes closest to realizing its ambitions. Much as in Ragtime , another uneven, uncompromising American mosaic, The March 's greatest rewards lie hidden in its digressions. And it's a credit to Doctorow's skill -- both as a writer and an entertainer -- that the task of following the narrative through so many loops and curlicues comes to seem, as the book twists willfully toward its end, something like a privilege. ·
John Wray is the author of "Canaan's Tongue."
