Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amiish
Language: English
Published by Beacon Press, 2007
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books (was SecondSale)
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
Condition: Used - Fair
£ 3.67
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Joe Mackall has lived surrounded by the Swartzentruber Amish community of Ashland County, Ohio, for over sixteen years. They are the most traditional and insular of all the Amish sects: the Swartzentrubers live without gas, electricity, or indoor plumbing; without lights on their buggies or cushioned chairs in their homes; and without rumspringa, the recently popularized running-around time that some Amish sects allow their sixteen-year-olds. Over the years, Mackall has developed a steady relationship with the Shetler family (Samuel and Mary, their nine children, and their extended family). Plain Secrets tells the Shetlers' story over these years, using their lives to paint a portrait of Swartzentruber Amish life and mores. During this time, Samuel's nephew Jonas finally rejects the strictures of the Amish way of life for good, after two failed attempts to leave, and his bright young daughter reaches the end of school for Amish children: the eighth grade. But Plain Secrets is also the story of the unusual friendship between Samuel and Joe. Samuel is quietly bemused--and, one suspects, secretly delighted--at Joe's ignorance of crops and planting, carpentry and cattle. He knows Joe is planning to write a book about the family, and yet he allows him a glimpse of the tensions inside this intensely private community. These and other stories from the life of the family reveal the larger questions posed by the Amish way of life. If the continued existence of the Amish in the midst of modern society asks us to consider the appeal of traditional, highly restrictive, and gendered religious communities, it also asks how we romanticize or condemn these communities--and why. Mackall's attempt to parse these questions--to write as honestly as possible about what he has seen of Amish life--tests his relationship with Samuel and reveals the limits of a friendship between English and Amish.…
Seller Inventory # 00104434327
- Title
- Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amiish
- Author
- Joe Mackall
- Publisher
- Beacon Press
- Publication year
- 2007
- Condition
- Fair
- Binding
- Hardback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0807010642
- ISBN 13
- 9780807010648
Over the years, Mackall has developed a steady relationship with the Shetler family (Samuel and Mary, their nine children, and their extended family). Plain Secrets tells the Shetlers story over these years, using their lives to paint a portrait of Swartzentruber Amish life and mores. During this time, Samuels nephew rejects the Amish way of life; his bright young daughter reaches the end of school for Amish children; and Samuel faces difficulties in his new role as a church leader.
These and other stories from the life of the family reveal the larger questions posed by the Amish way of life. If the continued existence of the Amish in the midst of modern society asks us to consider the appeal of traditional, highly restrictive, and gendered religious communities, it also asks how we romanticize or condemn these communitiesand why.
In simple but elegant prose that matches the values of his subject, Joe Mackall takes us deep into the Amish community. He neither romanticizes nor condemns an alternate way of living, but provides stunning insight through the generosity and compassion of his own heart. Chris Offutt, author of The Same River Twice and Kentucky Straight
Joe Mackall's Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among The Amish meets the biggest challenge of a book such as this by living up to his subtitle: Mackall is both outside and among in equal measure, and it's the most difficult terrain to occupy. Plain Secrets vibrates in that in-betweenness, in ways that only songs or poems usually can, and it does so in prose that's as clear as water. Its built the way the Amish build their barnseverything here is plumb and level. Diana Hume George, author of The Lonely Other: A Woman Watching America
Joe Mackall's patience, empathy, and dogged curiosity illuminate this fine, fascinating study of an elusive culture. Plain Secrets is a provocative, humbling, and soulful book. Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincolns Melancholy
Mackall does the job beautifully, painting an intimate portrait of the family that leaves the reader feeling humbled by the common thread thats woven into all of us. Sarah English, Cleveland Magazine
Mackall's writing is an honest and refreshing change from the customary saccharin scribbling about the Noble Amish Man. Despite, or perhaps because of, Mackall's refusal to perch the Amish on a pedestal, he manages to convey a deep respect for the people. Lancaster New Era
. . . he writes with a forthright precision. Akron Beacon Journal
Joe Mackall is author of The Last Street Before Cleveland. A professor of English and journalism at Ashland University, he is coeditor of the journal River Teeth and has written for NPRs Morning Edition, the Washington Post, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, among other publications. He lives near Cleveland, Ohio.
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World of Books (was SecondSale)
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
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