A hilarious and moving memoir in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron about a woman who returns home to her Mennonite family after a personal crisis.
The same week her husband of 15 years ditches her for a guy he met on Gay.com, a partially inebriated teenage driver smacks her VW Beetle head-on. Marriage over, body bruised, life upside-down, Rhoda does what any sensible 43-year-old would do: She goes home.
But hers is not just any home. It's a Mennonite home, the scene of her painfully uncool childhood and the bosom of her family: handsome but grouchy Dad, plain but cheerful Mom. Drinking, smoking, and slumber parties are nixed; potlucks, prune soup, and public prayer are embraced. Having long ago left the faith behind, Rhoda is surprised when the conservative community welcomes her back with open arms—and offbeat advice. She discovers that this safe, sheltered world is the perfect place to come to terms with her failed marriage and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.
Hillary Huber's narration has a sharp edge that deals effectively with the ironic humor that runs throughout this memoir. Years into her marriage to an abusive, bipolar man, Janzen ultimately loses him--to a man he met on the Internet. She turns to her Mennonite upbringing to help see her through and ends up moving back home with her parents, a move that prompts her to look at the Mennonite religion and culture with fresh eyes. Janzen's husband's defection obviously had a profound effect on her, and Huber recites her frequent references to "Bob" from gay.com almost like a mantra. In other places, Huber's tone aptly depicts Janzen's habit of coping through humor and introspection. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
About the Author
RHONDA JANZEN holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was the University of California Poet Laureate in 1994 and 1997. She is the author of Babel's Stair, a collection of poems, and her poems have also appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, and The Southern Review. She teaches English and creative writing at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
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