I have to admit: What drew me to Rhoda Janzen’s memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, were my own memories of Quaker boarding school and the day that our Mennonite classmate, Romy Flichenbacher*, showed up for the first day of class. Romy came riding up the long country driveway, sitting upright and facing backward in the bed of a pick-up truck. She wore a long black dress, equally black and sensible shoes, topped off with two long braids and a crisp, white bonnet. By the end of the year, Romy had let down her hair and borrowed a pair of Levi’s. She was later spotted in a big-city punk club wearing leather and a shaved head, waiting for her girlfriend’s band to finish playing their set.
Author Rhoda Janzen faced some big life changes of her own and I wanted to know if they would be nearly as dramatic. Janzen’s surprise break-up from her husband was also, it turns out, of the stunning, “Hi, Honey. I’m gay!” variety.
Raised in a traditional Mennonite family, Janzen moved to Los Angeles and pursued a Ph.D. Along the way, she married Bob—only to later find that her husband of 15 years had a boyfriend he met on Gay.com. As if that wasn’t enough, Janzen was seriously injured in a car accident the very same week as this unexpected discovery.
Janzen returned to her parents’ home for some much-needed R &R and the charming family interactions that accompany her extended visit take center stage in the book. Facing 40, divorced and over-mortgaged, Janzen looks back at her childhood to piece together the present parts of her life: faith, family, love and humor. Along the way, she realizes that things will always be okay (if imperfect) and that despite any difference in their choices, Janzen’s family would always be there for her. In fact, Janzen realizes, there was never any question about that.
This touching memoir is graced with a front-cover blurb by Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) promising laugh-out-loud wit. There are clever moments throughout, like Janzen’s list of Shame-Based Foods her mother packed for school lunches. Damp Persimmon Cookies, beet borsch, and a viscous meatball sandwich get top billing. By around page 108, I finally got the LOL-effect I was looking for when Janzen translates a children’s song about potato salad. (Don’t ask; read the book!) Mostly, though, the appeal of this book is in Janzen’s low-key descriptions of everyday life with parents who are as understanding and frugal as they are loving toward their two daughters.
Janzen’s blind-date motorcycle ride with a hottie 17 years her junior is a brief and steamy interlude and the back-of-the-book additions are gems shining light on Mennonite culture and the life of a writer. There are recipes for classic Mennonite dishes and “A Mennonite History Primer” to clue us in on Mennonite politics. Janzen also clears up the details, once and for all, about that big Amish-Mennonite breakup of 1693. (The Amish thought Mennonites were too liberal and rode off in their buggies to green pastures and hard work.)
For the most part, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is about one woman’s search for herself after marriage. Rhoda Janzen is a deft poet who now dips her creative pen in the life-story inkwell for the rest of us to enjoy. And if you like your summer reads easy-breezy, toss this one in your tote and head to the beach.
*Not her real name.
Shira Tarrant lives and writes in Los Angeles. Her books include When Sex Became Gender, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power, Men and Feminism, and Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style, and her writing has been featured in Bitch Magazine, BUST Magazine, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Huffington Post, and anthologies including Fix Me Up and Robot Hearts. To read more about her work, visit http://shiratarrant.com.
This post originally appeared on my former blog, StyleSubstanceSoul.
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