Book Review - 'Roxanna Britton' by Shirley Allen
I first read this book in 2018 and remember enjoying it enough that I wanted to read it again.
‘Roxanna Britton imaginatively recreates the life of a real woman, born in the Western Reserve, Ohio, in 1833. The places, dates, events, and major characters are all true, taken from family records and legal documents. The novel begins when Roxanna as a young widow faces the choice between putting her two baby girls in an orphan asylum or agreeing to a loveless marriage.
In her struggle to survive, Roxanna breaks through traditional barriers to women’s independence by finding a husband of her own choice, developing her own small business, and in 1865 becoming one of the first married women to own property. We follow her through the hard times of the Civil War to the post-war boom in Chicago and the Great Fire of 1871, and eventually to a homestead in Nebraska where, as a widow, she establishes her claim.
Roxanna Britton is the story not only of its heroine, but also of the age in which she lived and carries us into the moral, political, and economic upheavals of the nineteenth century while portraying the age-old struggle of women to balance the pull of family ties against the need for self-identity.’
The author, Shirley S. Allen, was a great-granddaughter of Roxanna Britton. Born in 1921, she became a professor of English, teaching at the University of Connecticut, after raising her three children.
When she was given family Bibles, letters and related paperwork, she decided to write about her grand-grandmother.
‘Roxanna Britton’ was published in 2001 when Shirley Allen was 80 years old. By the time she passed away in 2013, aged 92, she’d written a further two books.
The story begins in 1855, in Ohio “in the middle of winter”, with the eponymous character newly widowed at 22 with a two-year-old and a baby.
She’s awaiting the arrival of her parents for her late husband’s funeral. Needing “to think of a way to support herself and her girls”, the option of going to work would mean putting her little girls in an orphanage, which she refuses to do.
“Her only hope was to ask Ma and Pa to take her and the girls back to the farm. She gritted her teeth at the thought of being dependent on them, knowing… how hard it would be to revert to her schoolgirl status with Ma controlling her every move and trying to control her thoughts.”
In a few words, spoken and otherwise, we’re given a glimpse into the character of each person. Like Roxanna’s mother’s response when her daughter, her firstborn, says how glad she is her parents made the journey despite the cold:
‘“Naturally, we came,” Ma said… She surveyed the front room with those deep-set eyes that missed nothing. “I see that you need help. This place isn’t fit to receive callers. Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.”
‘Roxanna stiffened. Ma never hesitated to point out the failings of her children, usually couched in the pithy proverbs of her Puritan forbears…’
Wrestling with her pride, not knowing how to ask her parents if she and her girls can return to the farm, Roxanna needn’t have worried…
‘“Of course, you’re coming with us,” Ma answered. “You can’t stay here in the city alone. We’ll make room. Blood is thicker than water.”
‘Roxanna… and her girls would be safe. Forget pride. They would have food and shelter.’
Later, her father tells her what his father had told him, that “Britton women could do anything they set a mind to.” But he also chides her for not trusting her family, for doubting that they would come to her aid.
Although annoyed at what her father had said about not trusting the family, Roxanna hoped he was right about her having the ‘legendary strength of the Britton women. Of that young Elizabeth Britton who braved the Atlantic in a ship smaller than the Mayflower. Of that Tabitha Britton who ran the family gristmill while six of her brothers were serving in General Washington’s army. Of Diana Britton who took turns with her mother guarding their Ohio cabin while her father was away fighting the Indians.’
Roxanna knew she needed that strength ‘to find her own way now that she was alone… She had to find her own way, especially now that Ma would be treating her like a child again. She would need the strength of a Britton woman to maintain her independence.’
I liked that Professor Allen takes us straight to the crux of Roxanna’s story – her unspoken, quiet need to assert her independence as a grown woman. Not simply a daughter or wife or mother, but a person in her own right.
Women then and for many years after were only ‘seen’ in the roles determined by their marital status – someone’s daughter or a wife and mother – and they had no independence as they were viewed as the property of the father or husband. Spinsters and widows were ‘invisible’ with severely limited options.
Whatever their status or age, women weren’t allowed to vote or to open a bank account in their name.
Overall, I enjoyed the book more for the glimpse it gave me into the social norms of the times and life on an American farm and homestead, which bookended life in a big city.
However, as a story, I found it somewhat lacking.
I did like Roxanna herself. As the main character around which the story revolves, she’s a larger-than-life character and I mean that in a good way. I liked the way she struggled against the constraints of her time but never rocked the boat to ‘break free’ in a dramatic fashion; she rebelled in her own quiet way, which I found very believable and that added to the realness of her as a character.
As for the other characters, there are a lot of them as Roxanna came from a large family. I found the family tree at the beginning of the book very helpful.
As the story progresses, we’re introduced to even more characters, some stay for longer than others.
Life wasn’t easy for Roxanna and she had more than her fair share of heartbreak, as did other members of the family.
My one complaint is I didn’t really get to know many of the regular characters as there was too much ‘telling’, which got in the way of any emotional investment I might have had. And the ‘telling’ was more prevalent later in the book, not so much in the first third.
I didn’t even connect as much as thought I would with Roxanna. At the point when she had one tragedy swiftly follow another, I didn’t feel her pain.
I think a big part of that is the way the story has been written.
Although based on fact, it’s obviously a fictionalised account of Roxanna Britton’s life and that’s to be expected.
But there are times, it doesn’t read as a novel, if that makes sense, and I guess that’s what I was hoping for.
Granted, there is a lot of history to cover – the story spans 37 years, from 1855 to 1892 – but, after the first 90 or so pages, I didn’t get the sense of time passing. Events tend to run one into the other with barely any spacing or paragraph break to denote either a scene change or time change.
Personally, I found the first third of the book, where Roxanna is back with her family on the farm, the most engaging where we come to know her family through Roxanna’s interactions with them.
Into the second half of the book, those same family members are only mentioned in passing, usually in terms of them having died some months or years previous.
The two chapters covering the Civil War didn’t give the sense of a country torn apart by war. We experience it and the effects it has on other members of her family through Roxanna’s point of view, but I didn’t get any feeling of danger or urgency.
Those who regularly read my reviews must know by now that I’m quite the fussy reader.
Despite what I’ve written in relation to my complaint, ‘Roxanna Britton’ is an interesting read because of its historical value.
Not only are we reading of life in the second half of 19th century America from a woman’s point of view, it’s also the life of the ordinary people who lived then, not only on farms but also in a big city like Chicago as it experienced industrialised change.
Before I go, I have to say, as a writer, I am not only impressed but inspired by the author’s success in writing her first book at age 80!