Susan Cheever profiles a well-loved American author in her biography LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (Simon & Schuster, $26). Louisa was much influenced by her father­–a brilliant philosopher and progressive educator, but an ineffectual provider.  In fact, much of her writing was fueled by the family’s need for money.  She used her own life as inspiration for her most famous book, Little Women; her mother, sisters, and many friends became models for the characters.   Louisa was clearly a product of the fertile literary environment in which she dwelled; the Alcotts counted Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau as friends and neighbors.  Of course, she was also inspired by the times; the Civil War, industrialization, westward expansion, immigration, and the beginnings of the Women’s Suffrage movement informed Alcott’s thinking and writing.  Cheever’s book builds to the eventual success of this beloved author, a triumph after years of hardship and rejection.