Review
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Title: Barrington Family Saga, Vol. 2: A Quiet Promise
Author: Anita Stansfield
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2007
Number of Pages: 278
Binding: Trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59811-373-0
Price: $15.95

Reviewed by Katrina Holgate Miller

Stansfield’s signature strength is her willingness to depart from
prototypical puritan Mormon romance and engage her readers with
provocative subject matter not found in Relief Society manuals. In Volume
II of The Barrington Family Saga: “A Quiet Promise,” Stansfield maintains
integrity to her mission in shaping the lives of LDS women through the art
of the story.

The background of “A Quiet Promise” is set in Volume I, which describes
how the protagonists of the Barrington Family Saga series came to be a
couple. Set in 1830s England, James, as master of the manor falls in love
with Eleanore, who had come to servitude in the Barrington household as an
orphan. Her maturity and responsibility earned her the position of
governess to James' two children. James realized he cherished her, as he
watched the tender and astute manner in which she guided his children.
Prior disappointments in relationships had wounded James’ compassionate
and deeply spiritual nature; he did not understand that he could be in
love and safe at the same time. Rather than confess his love to Eleanore,
he proposed a marriage of convenience. She accepted. A few weeks after
their marriage, the new family boarded a vessel and began their journey to
America.

Volume Two, “A Quiet Promise,” described the early experiences of James
and Eleanore as settlers in 1840 Iowa City. James emerged as a powerfully
protective and passionate husband. He regarded his wife's decision to be
baptized with intrigue, respect, and a sense of foreboding.
Intrigue-because the gospel message appealed to him. Respect-because he
believed his wife had a right to self-determination. The foreboding
portended alarm James experienced when he later overheard a conversation
between two men bragging that Mormons are lawfully killed in Missouri.
James felt it necessary to keep his wife's membership in the Church silent
for the sake of safety. The conflict of the story danced around the
difference between his resistance to the Church and her desire to share
the gospel not only with him, but with neighbors and friends.

A subplot emerged in Chapter 1 when Eleanore threw herself into James
arms, weeping because she had just had a miscarriage. He tried, in vain,
to comfort her. He reminded her that his children were their children. He
acknowledged that the miscarriage represented a death in the family. The
subconflict is articulated in Stansfield's omniscient narration of James'
recognition that his wife would never feel that life is perfect unless she
could carry and bear a child.

Readers of Stansfied's novels may find people resembling people they
know-maybe even themselves. James, though very masculine, is maudlin,
vulnerable, and sometimes whiny in his relationship with his wife. He
cursed and drank "a little". Eleanore, though committed to gospel living,
experiences jealousy and has a "poor me" attitude about her gynecological
problems. And in spite of the need for Stansfield to show that life's
problems can be resolved through gospel living (a requirement in order to
have one's book sold at Deseret Book), she is able to tastefully describe
the pleasure that both the protagonists experienced from making love.

Assuring that the book matches the publication needs of Deseret Book and
Covenant Communications may have temporized Stansfield's use of artistic
license. For example, the book has a very predictable resolution, and is
just one more book in Mormon fiction that ends with a baptism. The baptism
ending was recently cited by readership of the Meridian, a popular Mormon
e-journal, as a resolution that has been exhausted in Mormon literature.
The Mormon idealogical commitment to "Be ye therefore perfect" was
overrepresented in the book in the framing of the protagonists's lifestyle
in saccharin and supercilious terms. Stansfield has either Eleanor or
James or both of them extolling their own "perfect lives" (perfect
everything, just about), "complete love', "deepest feelings", and
"absolute" knowledge that Joseph Smith was a prophet. However, these
representations of perfection were intriguing. After all, who wouldn't
want a strong testimony of the gospel? A husband who makes generous
donations to the Church, even though he is not a member? And a dog who
never poops in the house?

While it is commendable that Stansfield identifies real problems faced by
Mormon women, this reviewer suggests that she is only halfway there. The
other half is real solutions. There are multiple resolutions to
interpersonal conflicts in real life that result in happy endings. These
include (a) getting what one wants; (b) compromising (c) giving the other
what he or she wants as a gift of love (d) walking away from the conflict
for a while; and (e) using the knowledge gained from working with the
conflict to get something even better than what one originally wanted.
This reviewer wondered if the resolution delivered by Stansfield was
merely an example of wish fulfillment or if it represented the genuine
expectations of Mormon women.

If Stanfield's books are selling because they represent what Mormon women
want in their lives, then the fantasy has served a useful purpose. But if
the books are popular because they represent what Mormon women expect in
life, then it would seem that Mormon women habitually set themselves up
for disappointment. Further, that expectation would severely narrow the
opportunities for Mormon women to let life's opportunities nourish them.

This reviewer wondered what would happen to Stansfield's book sales, if,
for example, Eleanor agreed that James' ambivalence toward the Church was
"okay" and lived happily ever after in a part-member family? Or what if
Eleanor had experienced an epiphany when she realized that the love she
had for her stepchildren was as significant a gift from Heavenly Father as
the gift of having a functioning womb? If Mormon literature is to be
adequately faith promoting, it must teach that happiness can be achieved
through whatever outcomes one receives in life. Happiness that comes from
the inside-rather than depending on what happens outside-is the very
essence of faith. But can such happiness sell?