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In the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron comes Janze's hilarious and moving memoir about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

Turns out, you can go home again

Review by Norah Piehl

Rhoda Janzen was having a really bad year. Following her recovery from a hysterectomy, Janzen's handsome, charismatic, but mercurial husband of 15 years abruptly left her for "Bob the Guy from Gay.com," leaving her with conflicted feelings--and an expensive lakefront home she couldn't afford. Just days later, Janzen was involved in a crippling car accident. What was this sophisticated, confident woman in her early 40s to do? With a six-month sabbatical scheduled, Janzen made a most unexpected choice--to head back home, into the welcoming arms of the Mennonite family and community she thought she had nothing in common with.

Janzen's period of healing--in both body and spirit--forms the backdrop of her memoir, as she utilizes her quasi-outsider perspective to reflect on her own story of growing up Mennonite (and the social ostracism that sometimes resulted), on her often troubled marriage and on her sometimes strained relationships with her siblings. Even as she affectionately pokes fun at such things as her father's bold demands and her mother's unflaggingly earnest optimism, Janzen reflects on how her Mennonite upbringing might have affected her own relationships and on how she's managed to incorporate the cabbage and starch laden cuisine of her youth into her cosmopolitan, foodie lifestyle.

Readers will find themselves laughing out loud at Janzen's wry commentary on themes that shouldn't really be funny at all. The playful humor is balanced, however, with genuine thoughtfulness, especially as Janzen reconnects with childhood companions and reflects on how different her own life might have been, had she chosen to remain in the Mennonite community instead of embracing an intellectual life. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress will resonate with any reader who has ever thought about how such choices shape our futures, or with anyone who has struggled to recapture faith--in God, in other people or in oneself.

Norah Piehl is a freelance writer and editor in the Boston area.

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Publisher Comments

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.