241 pages

"It is rare that I literally laugh out loud while I'm reading, but Janzen's voice—singular, deadpan, sharp-witted and honest—slayed me." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her quirky Mennonite family's home, where she was welcomed back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda's good-natured mother suggested she get over her heartbreak by dating her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.)

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

I did not anything about Mennonites even if I had read about the Amish. I should have read the history part (at the end of the book) first.
The story is written with wry humour but it is not a happy one. Is the writer serious about it being only natural that a healthy woman should undergo a radical salpingo-oopherectomy (removal ol of uterus and ovals) at menopause? It does not sound a Mennonite thing to do and still it was done to her mother.
I happened to read about the outhouse and what can be found there while I was eating my dinner. It did nothing to increase my appetite.

Toivelista-Räbäkki
Lukuiloa!

Wishlist-RABCK
Happy reading!

Thanks for this surprise RABCK book. Good hint to begin from the end or from page 225 to be precise.

Of course I did not remember advice given to me over three years ago, but luckily I came here to comment after chapter one. There is still time to begin from the end.
Came here just to say that it is a great gift to be able to turn life's tragedies into humour and certainly helps the mental healing, perhaps also the physical.
A friend of mine had a large but benign tumour in her uterus and her doctor specifically said he would leave the ovaries because if he took away everything, menopause symptoms would be just awful. Well, she wonders just how much more awful is possible, because she hasn't slept a whole night in ten years and has these hot flashes and what not all the time, but at least that was what was recommended to her.
I luckily have no experience of pee-bags, but have heard what a nuisance they can be. A husband of a friend had an explorative abdominal surgery due to suspected cancer. The last thing he asked before they put him to sleep was that surely he is not going to have a pee-bag of all things when he wakes up and the doctor assured him not to worry. When he woke up he had a pee- and a poo-bag, and will have as long as he lives. They removed his bladder and 30 cm of intestines only to learn that the growth was benign and such a radical approach had been unnecessary. Shit literally happens. What amazes me the most at this time and age when man has been to the moon, is that a non-leaking pee-bag has not been designed yet. Some leak more and some less, but they all leak. So sheets have to be changed sometimes three times a night. By his long-suffering wife as her husband is also partly paralysed due to a motorcycle accident when he was just 16. "In sickness and in health" will take this wife to an early grave. Long-term sleep deprivation and continuous stress have increased her blood-pressure and she has had minor vessel ruptures in her brain which have deteriorated her memory and speech. She can't produce coherent sentences any more and she looks like a ghost. It is awful to see, as she used to be a happy and fun person. Her husband is a tyrant whose body is crippled, but evil mind works like a razor and he has probably decided that somebody has to pay for what has happened to him and the easiest target is the poor wife, whom he ridicules in public.
What also amazes me is that people whose job is to change these pee- and poo-bags in home-care are most of the time not trained nurses, but unemployed just made to do a short-term job to keep them on the dole. Many of them have never seen a pee- or poo-bag before. They are temporary employees, so even if they learn, they are soon replaced by a new face. This might also explain about the leakages. I wish that I will drop dead fast when the time comes.

Reading the history part about two-seated outhouses the Mennonites had. Not all that rare, we also had two seats in our outhouse at our summer cottage and the neighbouring farmhouse had an old outhouse in the corner of their cow-house, used by their farm workers long gone, and it had four seats. Small girls do everything together and we were four girls playing outside, so of course we went to pee together instead of leaving our games, going in (the farmhouse had a modern indoor toilet by then) and taking the risk of the farmer's wife coming up with chores for her daughters. Out of sight, out of mind. The only problem with that outhouse was that they only had old newspapers there instead of toilet paper. Waste not!

Picture of a men's room sign, UK.

I'm so happy our family didn't have a car when I grew up. These car holidays with small children and no air-condition do not sound very enviable.

A person who has a master's degree in clinical psychology thinks his bipolar disorder does not need medication... Good heavens. And how stupid can a wife be, doing nothing when money is going down the drain, furniture broken and all she hears is verbal abuse - and she knows what her husband's diagnose is. It's not as she was thinking what could be the reason for this. She knows what mental illness he has, she knows he is off medication - is this what she thought was meant by "...In sickness and in health..."?

I was a VERY finicky eater as a kid, so I would probably have died rather than eaten Mennonite packed lunches. I thankfully remember the salami rye-bread sandwiches and bananas or oranges Mom packed in my bag.
With the choices of men Rhoda has dated or married I am not at all unhappy being an old spinster. It's better to be alone than in bad company.

Towards the end I lost interest. For a person who had not chosen her parent's path she was still so entangled in religion and the Mennonite cult that I found it disturbing. For a scholar of 40+ years she appeared immature and her ability of writing with great self-humour disappeared somewhere along the line. Towards the end it was more like writing to clear her own thoughts instead of writing to tell a story.
Didn't reach The End.

Waiting for a new reader in Columbus.

Edit: The book was gone by 10th Feb.2019.