Amish fiction: Put a bonnet on it

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:00:00 +0000

With mommy porn bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey whipping up a sadomasochistic storm in the female book market this summer, it might seem safe to assume that old-fashioned romance novels, in which the protagonists prefer hastily confessed feelings and innocent first kisses to heavy petting and handcuffs, would begin to disappear from the shelves. After all, now that someone is finally writing erotica for the estrogen set, who needs tender love stories?

The Amish, that’s who. Or to be more accurate, women, principally Christian, who love to read about the Amish. Amish romance novels are big business. Most feature a pretty girl in a bonnet on the cover. There are quilting bees and work frolics, pie bakes, and buggy rides into the sunset. Almost all of them follow a particular young woman in her search for the fulfillment of romantic and family love.

Not that the course of true love ever did run smooth, even in Lancaster County, Pa., or Shipshewana, Ind. As is the case with any romance novel bound for the bestseller list, there are innumerable obstacles on the way to the altar for the Hannahs and Rachels and Roses and Betsys of the “plain” world. (“Plain” being Amish or, in some cases, old-order Mennonite; “fancy” is reserved for the modern lifestyle of decorative clothes, cars and electricity.)

Why cockfighting persists

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

I was 6 years old when I saw my first cockfight. It must have been a gray day, because even though I was very young, I remember clearly the bright color of the roosters’ feathers – white, black and blood red, even before any damage was done – and of the coat I wore back then, pink faux fur that made me feel like a Barbie doll.

It happened on a patch of dirt in front of a wooden stable where a man my brothers and I called “Uncle” Larry kept chickens and a few hogs, including a mated pair named Samson and Delilah. Larry wasn’t actually my uncle – just my dad’s best friend – and his place wasn’t a fully functioning farm, just a small ranch house on several acres of land on the outskirts of Fort Wayne, Ind., but it might as well have been another planet to my brother and me. Our parents allowed us to keep a dog and an occasional fish or turtle. Larry’s sons and stepsons, on the other hand, grew up wild, BB guns in their closets, mud on their boots. A trip to Uncle Larry’s always meant adventure, and sometimes, like the night my dad helped Larry ring and castrate the pigs, blood.

Salon.com > Deborah Kennedy

Amish fiction: Put a bonnet on it

Why cockfighting persists