Book 20 (2013) Mennonites Don't Dance**** by Darcie Friesen Hossack

Hossack is a short story writer compared to Alice Munro and I can see why.   The stories are about harsh experiences and are upsetting and haunting.  The Mennonite aspect is low key, mostly background, but is also the foundation for how the characters deal with life.  My own experience with the Mennonite life is not so uncompromisingly serious and soul-killing, but enough so I do understand.  Not an uplifting book, but the writing and stories are breathtaking.

Book 34 (2012) title by author

I can't remember anything except it was short stories about Mennonite war veterans and coming back to Steinbach.   Will complete when I get the book back from dad.

Book 33 (2012) Mennonites Don't Dance by Darcie Friesen Hossack

Great short stories.

Book 30 (2012) Mennonite is the Name, Evil and Deception are the Game * by Heidi Loewen

This woman is pretty crazy but it's a great story (true) about how a family greed and piety can destroy great wealth and properity.   The story of the family that built the Piano HOuse in Winnipeg.

Book 29 (2012) By Whatever Name *** by Elizabeth Reimer Bartel

She's a first cousin of my mother Evelyn Reimer Doerksen.   This story is fictionalized history of her mother's family bringing in the history of the "holdoman" church (a very strict sect of Mennonites).    The family moves from Manitoba to Kansas and becomes entangled in the US conscientious objector laws, which were much more onerous than in Canada.   Treatment was prison and torture.

She's a wonderful writer but this one's tops them all.   That subtle forboding atmosphere suggested when the all the world seems bright, happy, and prosperous for the Mennonite farmers and business people.   Oh yes, she is 86 years old and apparently getting better.

Book 26 (2012) Mennonite Furniture, A Migrant Tradition *** by Janzen

This was on the bargain pile at the Mennonite Heritage Museum.   I had looked at it many times, but only saw photos of furniture that I had never seen in any one's house, so I dismissed it as maybe about Ontario or Pennsylvania Mennonite.   But it is really a social history about customs in Russia, Prussia, etc., a very good bargain for sure.   A Mennophile essential.

Book 25 (2012) Irma Voth **** by Miriam Toews

The story of a girl dragged from Manitoba to a Mexican Mennonite colony, getting mixed up in drugs and film making, and breaking out with no money, no passport, no education.  Toews amazes yet again with freshness of her words and story.  

It's hard to chose her best book, but these are musts for any reader ---
The Flying Troutmans
Swing Low
A Complicated Kindness

All prize winners.

Book 19 (2012) Returning Home *** by Loreen Plett

Fiction based on Plett family history.   Mennonites in what is now Poland (then Prussia), the wealthy prosperous family and one who rebelled and left the community.   Some religion thrown in.   Also some gypsies.  
Great story, written by a writer of the romance style.   A must read if you are interested in Mennonite history as it is unique or the history of Prussia/Poland.

Book 14 (2012) For Now * Gayle Friesen

Well written, had not realized it was juvenile fiction.

Book 7 (2012) This Hidden Thing **** by Dora Dueck

I've spent many weeks in Manitoba this year, read many books on local history and by local authors.   Mostly the Mennonite theme, but also other early settler stories.

This book tells the story of Mennonite refugees from Russia in the 1920's.  Many of these families were supported by sending young teenage girls to be house maids in Winnipeg homes.    My own aunts had this experience.    As with many families with this background of terror, they prospered in Canada, and in one generation with great personal sacrifice, made a wonderful life.   

Very well written and compelling story of not so untypical woman's life.

Prizes -- 2010 Manitoba Book of the Year

Book 12 The Flying Troutmans **** by Miriam Toews

This is the story of Hattie, called to help out her niece, age 11,  and nephew, age 15, when their mother suffers yet another mental breakdown, she takes the kids on a mad mad world road trip to search for their father.   They cross into the US in an old van --- and Toews finds new material for a familiar plot in this dysfunctional family tale.

The writing is outstanding, possibly her best in a stunning collection.   The conversations between Hattie and the kids are masterful.  Toews usual themes of people with seemingly insurmountable problems who stumble and struggle through life could be very frustrating, but she draws characters who are battered by life, intelligent, funny, wise, impulsive, self-destructive, creative, in emotional agony, and who learn to love and care for each other.  

Other books by this author:
A Complicated Kindness **** (Governor General's Award)
Swing Low: A Life  ****
The Summer of My Amazing Luck ***

Book 7 Quiet in the Land*** by Anne Chislett

This is a play about some Old Colony Mennonite in Ontario in the last year of WWI.  Although the author is from Newfoundland and not a Mennonite, I found it all rang true, no discord.   Very well written, and a clear portrayal of each character with ove and understanding.   A fantastic play.   I almost gave it four stars but it is not original enough.

Book 58 (2010) Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home* by Rhoda Janzen

Very funny book.   It's more too.   Janzen offers insight into the psyche of a woman raised as a Mennonite but not living as one.   For instance, why she stayed in an abusive marriage for 15 years.  The heroine is her mother, a very wise woman.   A lot like Loris' mother maybe.  

Book 41 About Those Reimers*** by Elizabeth Reimer Bartel

This book is a memoir by a cousin of my mother's, Betty Reimer.   Beautifully written, and blessed with several wicked poems, I thoroughly enjoyed this story.   The Reimer family established a general store in the 1870's in Steinbach, Manitoba, and the memoir chronicles the history of the store, through the personal experiences of a child and teenager.  

I read the first chapters based in Steinbach carefully to make sure I found any new scuttlebut but the book mainly fills in details of the story told to me by my mother (Evelyn).   The main secret of the family is how Aunt Annie's romance was sabotaged by Uncle Henry for reasons unknown.   Rumour abounds.

Betty (now Elizabeth) tells the story of her upbringing in Steinbach, first as a relatively privileged granddaughter of a prominent businessman, H. W. Reimer, and her life growing up and working in the huge general store, and later as a much poorer teenager when her father left the family business and the town to start his own business.   Well told, the story paints a clear picture of real people living those years in the foreground of the history of Canada in depression, war, and recovery.

She alludes to the Reimer tendency to independent action and wild impractical dreams without the grit to plan and execute them or consider those others whom it may affect.   Heaven knows the family is full of renowned characters who prove this point, especially the male family heads in each generation.  She also describes the Mennonite system of inheritance (European system) and how the Reimer money and business were dissipated by decades of fighting amongst the heirs.  

The eye openers are there too.  When I lived there in the 50s and 60s, the whole town seemed uniformly conservative and stifled by the Kleinegemeinde church.   Betty's memories are broader in perspective and describe more liberal ideas and behaviours than I had imagined existed in those early years of the 20th century.  

I was moved by the struggle of my parents' generation to get a high school education, even for those with rich grandparents.  Heaven knows my mother described this desperation to me many times.   And I admired the bravery of those young men who joined the armed forces against strong opposition from home.   Leaving home for them meant learning vernacular English, trying to fit in with the mainstream of Canadians, and facing ostracism for being "German".

I was brought to tears at her mention of her sisters and the bond between sisters being the strongest of all bonds, because sisters are the most closely related.  

A strong recommendation to anybody who knows Steinbach.  And let me know what you think please.  

Book 6 The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia by Connie Braun *

The redemption story of the Letkeman family who survived, against all odds, the Russian revolution, deportation to the Gulag, the German occupation, the Great Trek, and labour in Yugoslavia and Austria, and finally immigration to Canada.  Much of it is so familiar to most of us --- we all have the same family stories.  Braun has meticulously researched her family history, though sources are sparce.   My only complaint are the several introductory and ending chapters that contrast in style with the wonderful telling of the main part of the book.  She tells each part of the story by deconstructing an old photograph or postcard, a few of which somehow remain in the family.   Maria Letkeman is the aunt of the Letkeman family that were our neighbours in Steinbach.