Roxanna Slade

It is difficult to achieve what Price has here. Open this book to any line and you will find a music in that sentence which is rich and thoughtful, deep and life changing. And therein lies the problem. This is tough book to get through. To be sure, it is well worth it, but it takes an exorbitant amount of time and concentration.

It’s about Roxanna Slade, a no nonsense, get to it kind of woman from North Carolina. She has led a self-proclaimed unremarkable life, and yet every thought she has is remarkable. From her description of suffering depression, to her life as a disgruntled daughter-in-law and onwards into her nonagenarian years.

But that is also the problem, the book is told from her prospective as a 90-something-year-old. And show more while her stories are well worth telling, there is only so long a person can hear them. I would have been happy with less commentary and a little less foreshadowing. Still, Price is a master and never a waste of time. show less

Reading this book was like reading my grandmother's diary. Although their lives were nothing alike, they lived in the same time period and they both lived rather ordinary lives that seem extraordinary by today's standards. Life was hard in the early 1900's and much sadness was borne with everyday courage.

In these ruminations of a 90-year-old North Carolina woman, we look deeply into a melancholy soul. Roxanna shows the careful reader much wisdom about how to live a life worth living. She trusted in her belief that every life is "useful to the world and to the eyes of God." She had much to forgive in her life and much to be forgiven for.

She talks frankly about the way blacks were treated and about how black women were used by white men. show more Women didn't have the choices in life that we have today and lived their lives of quiet desperation. Roxanna certainly suffered in her long life, but she did it with grace and found meaning and truth in whatever came her way.

Recommended for those who enjoy books about women with quiet strength show less

I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. I kept a notebook with me always while I was reading so I could write down any text I found meaningful. All in all I had almost two pages before the novel ended. I like Reynolds Price's style.

Some personal favorites:
pg. 136 "I've tended to bite my fingernails in worrisome times, and soft-shelled crabs have always seemed to me like a fingernail biter's ideal food."

pg. 151 "As Fern faced me then, he looked like the last Angel Eve ever saw as she left Eden. He nodded Yes and raised his right hand swearing silence. And he kept that silence the rest of his short life."

pg. 179 "Who do you get depression from or the wild excitement of mania? Doctors and experts can talk forever, but no one's show more yet explained to me where strictly mental Hell comes from."

The book showcases only what Roxanna deems as the remarkable events of her life, from her meeting of Larkin Slade and his brother Palmer, to her marriage, her indomitable mother-in-law and the birth of her children, all the way up to her preparation for death as an elderly lady in her nineties. This is definitely worth a reread one day down the road when I'm feeling pitiful and lonely.

Wonderful. show less

A view of the 20th century thorugh one woman's small, ordinary, extraordinary life. RS was born in 1900 and she is writing her memoir from the perspective of 90+ years. She spent her entire life in a small North Carolina town, and the story doesn't necessarily sound like it's going to be interesting, but the way Anna sees life, the world, herself and the people around her make this a very compelling story. It is beautifully written, with prose like simple poetry. Highly rated, highly recommended.

Southern Gothic meets chick lit

Good story of a young woman.