Sunday Books & Culture
This week’s review details Joanna Miller’s “The Eights”, a fictional telling of the daring and resilient women that integrated Oxford.
Sunday Books & Culture is edited by Vanessa Sekinger
THE EIGHTS
by Joanna Miller
Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons (April 15, 2025)
Hardcover $26.10
Audiobook $14.18
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
Oxford University in England has a reputation for academic excellence, famous graduates, and scholarly works at its 43 colleges. For 1,000 years, all those experiences and contributions were made by men. But in 1920, for the first time, Oxford officially admitted female students.
Joanna Miller has created four young women to represent those who were daring enough to change history at England’s esteemed university. They are assigned to corridor eight at St. Hughs College, giving them the nickname of “The Eights.”
Beatrice Sparks lives in the shadow of her mother who is a famous suffragette. Being six feet tall, she stands out while trying to blend in with the other students. Marianne is the daughter of a widowed preacher, who brings with her a blanket of lies. On day one, she decides this life is not for her, despite her love of learning and Jane Austen. Theodora, known to family and friends as Dora, is still mourning the loss of both her brother and her fiancé in World War I. She is at St. Hughs to escape the grief at her home, and to learn and play sports in an effort to feel alive again. Ottoline, called Otto, comes from a rich family and has a mind for mathematics. She failed at nursing during the war and wants to succeed at Oxford. Despite being in a dorm room and at a University where rules dictate behavior, she finds ways to keep her social life (alcohol, cigarettes, dates) flourishing.
From their first day, these young women are challenged. They have to wear academic dress and a weird floppy felt hat with four pointed corners. They are fed food that is vastly inferior to meals served at the men’s colleges. They can never be in the presence of a male without a chaperone. They have curfews. They are not allowed in several historic buildings. Despite all of this, the four women become close friends and help each other through classes, exams, and personal crises.
Misogyny is rife in 1920 at Oxford. The women students are heckled, pushed off bicycles, and ridiculed by male students. Too many first-born sons perished during the war, so many young men are at Oxford only because they “had the good fortune to be born a younger brother.” Yet a few men find the presence of women important, finding that they add to the campus, rather than detract from it. The author creates a scenario where the Oxford Union Society tackles this issue head on: “QUESTION FOR DEBATE: ‘That this House believes women have no place at the University of Oxford.’” Both sides bring their strongest speakers to the lectern.
Set just after WWI, when grief infiltrated England and influenza was rampant, these female students faced a world torn apart. The author attended Exeter College and visited Oxford more than 50 times doing research for this book. The four women she uses to explain their difficult journey are not real, but the experiences they had and the challenges they faced are.
Penny A Parrish is a local writer and photographer. View her photos.
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