Saturday, October 17, 2009

Pg. 99: Rhoda Janzen's "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen.

About the book, from the publisher:
A hilarious and moving memoir—in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron—about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. This wasn’t just any home, though. This was a Mennonite home. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage; her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind; and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.
Read "The Tractor Driver or the Pothead?" in the New York Times Magazine, an essay adapted from the book.

Learn more about Mennonite in a Little Black Dress at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.

--Marshal Zeringue