Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

This book by Rhoda Janzen is a true story about her life inside and outside the Mennonite community. If you don't know about Mennonites, they are the group that the Amish broke away from because they were "too liberal!" Janzen talks about that a bit at the end of the book. Janzen had left the Mennonite community years earlier, married an atheist, and forgot about God. 

This book has as its "small title" (A Memoir of Going Home); it is this that makes up the majority of the book. When Janzen was about 40, her husband of 15 years left her for another man, she had a bad car accident, couldn't afford the mortgage on the lake house anymore, so she went home for awhile. It was like turning the clock back 300 years, well, almost like that, but it was still the same community she had fled so many years before and coming back, even when she would visit in years past, was painful, even sort of humiliating, finally perhaps restoring.

The book is poignant, funny, serious, tragic, sad, interesting, and pulls no punches about what Janzen's life was like living with a bipolar husband who refused to take his meds. In other words, it was a living hell, but she never left him, and she wonders why.

I would like to recommend this book, but the language in it is unnecessarily crude and blasphemous. I understand that references need to be made so the reader can understand the destructive nature of unchecked bipolar disorder, and even Janzen's own anger and frustration, but the language was still over the top. If you are willing to get past that, you will probably enjoy the book; sometimes I laughed so hard I was crying!

My husband's background is Mennonite, so I thought I was going to get a book that talked about life in the Mennonite community, the family reunions, the food, the family atmosphere, etc.; I got that an way more! Sex was an overarching theme (probably because the Mennonites don't talk about it), which got tiresome. But, all in all, I don't regret reading the book. It has some real insights into how we become who we are, what we do to rebel against that, and when we finally make peace with it.

There is an interesting section in the back of the book (not the Mennonite recipes, though they are intriguing); it is a series of questions to ponder about Janzen, Mennonites, God, etc. It would be interesting to know how Janzen answered these questions - probably not the way I did, but who knows for certain.