Snag Dawsons Fall: A Novel Penned By Roxana Robinson Softcover

frankly, this book was tedious reading, The pages of dairy quotations were painfully drawn out to the point of boredom, The plot meandered slowly along and the authors writing style was particularly constipated, Skip this one. via my blog: sitelink wordpress. com/
'Now hes back in another kind of conflict, the alarms and confusions of daily life.
'

While this novel is fiction, in the preface we are told that the author used authentic content, such as letters, diary entries and published sources of her own family, her great grandparents in particular.
Her discomfort in the racism within her family is noted, but to ignore the attitudes of the times would be a disservice to the truth, especially of the hardships faced in the fight for equality.
Both Frank and Sarah Dawson have thoughts that are easy to judge, such as the distastefulness of mix racing Sarah feels.
But then you have to sit with that thought, surrounded by the ignorance of the times, these are taught attitudes.


The novel opens with a nightmare Frank Dawson has just awaken from, Despite his wife Sarahs intuitive nature, and the troubling feeling that remains, he cant put much stock into dreams, he has enough pressing issues in his daily life than to allow a stranger in his sleep to torment him.
As editor and part owner of the Charleston News and Courier his voice is his tool, his opinions strong and not always popular in the south where the war refuses to remain in the past.
Death threats arent unusual for a man who tries to give black people political power, In fact, his Southern roots certainly are in question, being England born can he really be one of them Maybe he isnt even really a Captain either! He loves his Charleston, and he wants it to thrive, but to understand the anger we must travel further back.


It is, young Sarah Morgan is nineteenyears old and the war is scattering her family.
The south doesnt want the north interfering in its affairs, and the antislavery perspective isnt one the south shares, after all they believe they take care of their slaves and that theyd be helpless and lost without such care.
Fate is about to turn against her family, with the war taking her brothers and threatening every southerner.


In Southampton, Englishman Frank Dawson stands on the deck of the Nashville a steamer, once a mail ship to be fitted for war as one of the crew.
Unlike the other men, Dawson has a fine education, can speak four languages, read music and has a gentlemans manners.
Certainly he doesnt seem to fit in with the rest of the rougher men, Little can one imagine he will rise through the ranks of the Confederate navy, In America, Dawsons network of friends and his intelligence, connections will teach him about the south,

Here, he will support his brothers in arms against the north, From the water, he will turn to the land joining into the army, Sarah in the meantime taps into her own shocking nature, finding it necessary to arm herself with a pistol.
They are under siege and must run from Baton Rouge with whatever they can carry, Chaos reigns, everything is in ruins, as are the people after the shelling, Sarah is fierce, and often the cries in her diary are, “Oh if I were a man!” because then she could fight off these hypocritcal Yankees, who are destroying everything people like her family have worked for, killing off all the men! He family gets smaller and smaller with each death.
It is a world now of devastated women and children,

At the end of war, Dawson has been wounded, desperate for money and a job he soon has an offer to work for the Examiner, but soon Dawson meets B.
F. Riordon, with whom he would later create a newspaper with, But first, as the assistant editor for the Charleston Mercury his views on the Fourteenth amendment dont sit well with the bosses, staunch supporters of Confederacy, not ones to swallow the end of their empire and embrace the future.
With the paper failing, its an opportunity for Dawson and Riordon to run a paper with truth and promote their south.


Soon, Frank Dawson and Sarah Morgans paths merge when Jem, Sarahs brother, is seriously injured during an incident and Dawson rushes to be at his side.
So too, does his love blossom for Sarah, One small hitch, Dawson has a wife already but one who is gravely ill, After her passing, the two bond over literature but how to convince Sarah to marry him, particularly when she has no interest in doing what is expected of women The two begin to write each other, and Im guessing the letters were authentic, oh what a dying art!

You know they marry, or else how could there be this very book about the authors great grandparents Dawsons fall could come from anywhere, his progressive views such as his stance on antilynching, the stories he prints that tell the truth about crimes by condemning always what is wrong, even if it means exposing white South Carolinians, particularly in the case of the Hamburg Militiamen massacre.
History sidenote: Hamburg was an all black Republican community who had members in the militia, which were formed to safeguard said communities.
Research the Hamburg Massacre, it will explain the gravity of the situation and why siding with the black community infuriated citizens.
There was courage in Dawson and Riordon chosing to speak in defense of the militia, the truth can be dangerous! Lynchings, racism, rapes, war this novel deals with seriously taboo subjects, history rears its ugly head.


Then there is the sleazy neighbor Dr, Thomas Mcdow who seduces Dawson and Sarahs beautiful, young, Swedish governess Hélène, A man with murderous intentions who feels Dawson is interfering in his every plan, threatening to ruin him.
Not that I particularly liked Hélène but I imagine beingand working as a sort of servant, though maybe higher on the totem pole than the other help, shed be hungry for love, a husband.
Sure, she was lucky to be a part of a respectable, important family but the young still have their fanciful ideas and are ripe for certain worldly wolves.
What will it mean for Frank and Sarah

There is a lot happening in Dawsons Fall, looking back into your family history can be crushingly heartbreaking but its only because you are on the outside and know the end.
As in all lives, there are sweet spots despite the tragic curtain fall, For fans of historical fiction, there is quite a bit of the past to chew on, a lot of shame as well.
It seems Frank changed with the times and tried to be just, and that says a lot when its with great risk you go against popular thought.
Morality is a strange beast, there are certain wrongs against nature that no amount of justification can excuse.
History isnt pretty, for one family war took and gave in equal measure but sometimes it is those closer to home that can seal your doom.


Publication Date: May,

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sarah Crichton Books The use of diary entries frompeople as well as a fictionalized account made this book more difficult to read than a standard novel but the historical detail was interesting.
There are also insights into the psychology of the southern white mind here, Frank Dawson leaves all he knows in England to come to the United States to join the Confederacy in their fight against the Union in the Civil War.
He becomes well known and mostly well liked in his community of Charleston, South Carolina, He becomes the editor of the Charleston News and Courier and his opinion is valued as the South tries to grow again after the ravages of the war.


It was a very difficult time in the countrys history as the South was dealing with the destruction the war wrought, the emancipation of the slaves which left them without their “free” labor source and the impact of various political forces on moving forward.
Frank uses his platform to promote his liberal views which are, for the most part well received.
He grows his family and all seems to be going well,

Then another paper opens with opposing views, more conservative views particularly when it comes to the freed slaves.
Dawson finds his paper is losing subscribers and his business starts to wobble, He also finds himself embroiled in a feud with a neighbor, That neighbor, a doctor seems to have developed an obsession with the Dawson family nanny,

Ms. Robinson created the story from family diaries and historical records, It is a fascinating look at a tumultuous time in this countrys history, It does start a little slowly but it picks up and I found that I couldnt put it down.
Dawson is a rich and complicated man his story is just one of the many immigrant tales that have built this country into what it is today.
Each little piece in each little town and city has brought us to today,

.I'm a bit conflicted in reviewing this book,

First I know the author, Roxana Robinson, a bit and admire her work,

Second Our New England genealogies overlap in some ways, though to the best of my knowledge I have no early southern connections.
My husband's ancestors, however, have experienced both the "southern guilt", and the pride of having owned a newspaper albeit in Norfolk, CT.

My family traces to Harriet Beecher Stowe, as I imagine many others do, too, Robinson's family also has the BeecherStowe connection, From the preface of this book: "Many of my family were ministers and outspoken: Lyman Beecher and his son, Henry Ward Beecher, my great grandfather.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was my greatgreatgreat aunt, We spoke up for what we believed in, My father's side of the family have roots both in New England and in the south, The story of my southern family and their principles was more complicated than that of my New England family because of slavery.
I couldn't ignore its presence, All southern families regardless of their race which trace their bloodlines back before the Civil War are affected by the presence of that particular institution.
They may not mention it, but it helps shape who they are, So I wondered about this, How did people of principle navigate the ethical maelstrom of slavery How could they maintain personal integrity during that dark basilisk reign or during its terrible aftermath".


Third: The author had access to many fascinating, detailed family journals and papers, and the temptation to use them all in creating a history of the antebellum period must have been overwhelming.


Fourth: By using so much of the material, a larger picture is drawn of the period, but also one that it inevitably complex, detailed, and somewhat disjointed there are so many characters introduced that it is sometimes difficult to keep track of them all.
In truth if you were writing your family history and had close knowledge of many of them, which members would you leave out What information from family journals could you willingly omit

Fifth: The first part of the book was often painful, as it dealt with the big issues of the Reconstruction period and the horrendous treatment of former slaves.
I suffered when I recently read Chernow's Grant and learned of these horrors reading about them in Dawson's Fall was both confirming and very unpleasant.


Sixth: Despite the pain of reading about that period, I did enjoy the broad historical outlook.
About halfway through the book, the coverage switched from the large to the small picture, and almost exclusively covered the history of one family Robinson's great grandparents and their private trials and tribulations.
Although it is set against the broader problems of the period, its focus was primarily on the scandal and downfall of one family and made me less engaged.
I prefer reading about larger cultural movements, compared to injustices visited upon one smaller group,

Seventh: I understand that it would be nigh impossible to omit the details of a trial that your ancestors were directly involved with, particularly one so juicy as this, but I wish the details had congealed better.
The bigger themes of jealousy, yearning for what we don't have and protecting what we do have those are the concepts that intrigued me.



Random Notes:

politics means shifting alliances and Dawson's used to riding the waves.
. . but this rage is growing, not abating
its thes, The planters resent having to pay wages to men they used to own, Shifting alliances means shifting newspaper reading the role of newspapers in our history is vital, and it's upsetting to see what has been happening to them
chaptersetc.
gets too disjointed. Too many characters too quickly told, not enough time to digest who they are or start to care about them.

darkness pooled in the corners, pthe darkness pools inside him, pthe streets pooled with water I wouldn't have noticed
the repeated use of this verb, except it caught my attention and I enjoyed it so much the first time it was used
,all about reconstruction and how the whites resented the blacks and were determined to keep them down
Ch, petc about voter suppression could be written about today
that's interspersed with next chapter which is a macroissue, the dirty old man doctor pursuing young nanny
the Liberia solution, that even Lincoln was for
even "liberals" thought the blacks were inferior at the time.