Rain Dodging: A Scholar's Romp through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen

by Susan J. Godwin

Overview

Scholar Susan Godwin is hooked when she comes across the captivating story of Mary of Modena—a seventeenth-century Italian princess who was only fourteen when coerced into marriage with the future king of England, James II, yet went on to cultivate a court full of women writers in an age when female authorship was rare. How did Mary achieve such a feat?

Rain Dodging is Susan’s creative nonfiction account of the years-long search upon which this question—and her own unquenchable curiosity—launched her. Godwin travels through both space and time, solo adventuring through Britain in pursuit of truth and, in a spicy parallel arc, chronicling her own cluttered but resilient feminist path. From schizophrenic lovers to out-there musicians to one unhinged mother, Susan tells the story of her personal enlightenment even as she visits the palaces and manor houses in England and Scotland Mary once inhabited and pores over materials in Oxford’s stunning 400-year-old Bodleian Library, finding moments of transcendence and unexpected delight along the way.

Join Susan in this irreverent and illuminating journey—a fascinating account of the late Stuart monarchy, the progression of feminist history, and the unexpected connection between the two.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647425692
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Susan J. Godwin is a fervent educator, writer, and freelance artist whose world has always been steeped in books, from Harold and the Purple Crayon—she couldn’t resist drawing on her bedroom wall, no matter how many reprimands—to her first job as a library book mender in her Shaker Heights High School basement to teaching English at the prestigious UniversitySchool of Nashville. A former Oxford scholar, Godwin has received writing awards from the University of Michigan, Middle Tennessee State University, and Bread Loaf School of English. Though writing is her true passion, she is also a visual artist working primarily in oils and pastels. Her home is outside of Nashville, in Dickson, TN, on the banks of a winding Tennessee river, in a hayloft renovated by her sweet, sexy husband, Tony—with help from their rotty, Roady!

Editorial Reviews

It was an honour to read Rain Dodging. It brought tears to the eyes and a renewed sense of how blessed I was with you and your cohorts all those years ago.”
—Professor Peter McCullough, Lincoln College, Oxford

“Rain Dodging is a kaleidoscope of memoir and mystery, a collage of images and events. In a voice that’s candid, engaging, and thoroughly original, Godwin takes us on a journey through her life and into the 17th-century court of British Queen Mary of Modena. You’ll be hooked as you watch the connections unfold.”
—Shellie Michael, Professor of English, Volunteer State College

“Rain Dodging is a vision quest. I am typing through tears. I LOVED THE BOOK! I love her; what a character, free spirit, person I would like to hang with . . . ‘eternally curious about so much.’”
—Teresa Steve, social worker

“The opening chapters of Susan Godwin’s memoir whet the appetite for more. With vivid portrayals of Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera and Rare Book reading room, Susan brings her memories to life and powerfully conveys the excitement of scholarly discovery as she explores primary sources for late seventeenth-century English society, religion, culture, and the awkward assimilation of an intellectually accomplished Italian princess into the English royal family.”
—John M. Fyler, Professor of Medieval English at Tufts University

From the Publisher

2023-07-26
Godwin’s scholastic mission in Oxford inspires a flood of memories from her own troubled past in this memoir.

The author’s task was to gather information on a late-17th-century woman who was married, by proxy, at the age of 14 to the Duke of York, the man who was to become King James II (until he was deposed three years after ascending the throne). Shipped off to England on her 15th birthday to begin life with her husband, Maria Beatrice Eleonora Anna Margherita Isabella d’Este, more commonly known as Queen Mary of Modena, presided over an extraordinary court of published women writers, unique in that time. Godwin grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her father was a nationally prominent attorney; her mother was mentally disturbed and emotionally and physically abusive. Her goal was to get out of Ohio before she turned 30. She begins her narrative as a middle-age, accomplished academic—a librarian, an English literature teacher, and a writer—abroad in Oxford, England to research Mary’s life and her influence on early feminism. In between voluminous hours spent perusing the antique papers and tomes sequestered in Oxford’s Bodleian Library (“Heaven, for me, was spending the day reading and writing there,” Godwin enthuses), she visited the castles and towns frequented by Mary and James. The author is a stickler for the details of royal lineages; at times, the minutia she provides on the subject are fascinating—in other instances, it proves mind-numbing. But this book is more than a comprehensive history lesson with a feminist slant: It’s a meticulously recorded, travelog-style, picturesque jaunt through 17th-century England, as well as an artfully composed, emotional, and edgy personal memoir. Through intermittent narrative jumps, Godwin reflects on her life story, painfully raising the curtain on her traumatic childhood and its consequences into adulthood. In these sections, the reader discovers a surprisingly adventurous young woman who repeatedly courted the wild side in the search for a place she could call “home.” These are the most poignant and compelling sections of the narrative, along with a stunning reveal of a disturbingly dark secret from the past.

Alternately heartbreaking and witty, filled with intriguing historical nuggets.

Kirkus Reviews