CMW Community

On December 2, 2009, The New York Times Fashion and Style section published an interview and story by Cathy Horyn on the many faces of the real Rhoda Janzen. Horyn engages Janzen in conversation about her life since writing the memoir, the response of her community, and a new forthcoming memoir. Read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/fashion/03JANZEN.html

"Everyone who reads this memoir is surprised at how good it it," Horyn writes. She also has some comments that would fit right into the discussion on the CMW:

"Some Mennonite blogs have complained that her tone is snarky, that she dwells in generalities, but it’s also true that she has brought some aspects of Mennonite culture — a conservative faith distinguished for its positions on nonviolence and simple lifestyle — to a wider audience. Besides, memoirs don’t promise literal truths so much as profoundly singular voices, and Ms. Janzen, 46, has unexpectedly found hers. You can almost feel the chafe of her shame-based polyester trousers, the ones with the crease down the front “as if I were in early training to drive a Winnebago back and forth across America’s heartland,” just as you could probably spot Mary Loewen Janzen, her gentle but unglamorous mother, in a crowd, her head “sprouting directly from her shoulders like a friendly lettuce.” Her voice is that confident and fresh."