Mennonite In A Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, Allen & Unwin, $29.99
Rhoda Janzen writes with wit and fondness of growing up in a “painfully uncool”, but happy and supportive community of Mennonites; they’re the less picturesque cousins of the better-known Amish people.
Years later her glamorous and sophisticated life in the city falls apart when her husband leaves her for a man called Bob, a chap he meets on Gay.com. After the triple-blow of the Bob incident, a major operation, and a bad car accident, Rhoda goes home to her Mennonite family.
It sounds like grim stuff, but Rhoda’s family is comedy gold, and she has gift a for milking her (real) life of clashing cultures for genuine belly laughs. She’s welcomed home with lashings of the kind of food that rings of the 16th century German origins of the Mennonite church, kartoffelsalat anyone? And there’s relationship advice you won’t hear from Dr Phil: “Why not date your first cousin? He has his own tractor.”
It’s a fascinating and entertaining memoir of an unconventional life.
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