Author of the week: Rhoda Janzen
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is Janzen's hilarious account of returning, as a 43-year-old divorcée, to her parents’ conservative Mennonite household.
I’m probably not the only reader of Rhoda Janzen’s new memoir who is hoping that she’ll fall madly in love with her cousin Waldemar, said Kate Christensen in The New York Times. “Cousin Wally” comes up only in passing in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Janzen’s endearing and hilarious account of returning, as a 43-year-old divorcée, to her parents’ conservative Mennonite household. Janzen’s immensely likable mother strongly approves of Wally, and we recognize quickly that this is a mom who believes she always has her daughter’s best interests at heart. “Wally is my first cousin,” Janzen protests. “That’s both incestuous and illegal.” Part of the book’s great charm is that her mother doesn’t back down. “I think,” she says, “that the Lord appreciates a man on a tractor.”
The crisis that sends Janzen back to her parents’ California home only begins with divorce, said Julie Hinds in the Detroit Free Press. She was recovering from botched surgery when her husband of 15 years left her for a guy he’d met on Gay.com. Six days later, she collided with a drunken driver and shattered a passel of bones. “Those things seem so over the top,” she says, “it’s easy to see the humor in it.” That she does. But Janzen also used her time back home to recognize that her parents’ Mennonite faith was about more than just gray meatballs and borscht. “Trailing one’s 70-year-old parents around town,” she says, “is an excellent and underdiscussed cure for heartbreak.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Kirsty Coventry: the former Olympian and first woman to lead the IOC
In the Spotlight Coventry, a former competitive swimmer, won two Olympic gold medals
-
Critics' choice: Carrying the flag
Feature The best barbecue in town, Bradley Cooper's cheesesteak restaurant, and more
-
Film review: Materialists
Feature Two suitors seek to win over a jaded matchmaker
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-ups
feature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”