Rhoda Janzen is the author of Babel's Stair, a collection of poems. Her poems have also appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, and The Southern Review. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was the University of California Poet Laureate in 1994 and 1997. She teaches English and creative writing at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
"This book is not just beautiful and intelligent, but also painfully -- even wincingly -- funny. It is rare that I literally laugh out loud while I'm reading, but Rhoda Janzen's voice -- singular, deadpan, sharp-witted and honest -- slayed me, with audible results. I have a list already of about fourteen friends who need to read this book. I will insist that they read it. Because simply put, this is the most delightful memoir I've read in ages." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love "This is an intelligent, funny, wonderfully written memoir. Janzen has a gift for following her elegant prose with the perfect snarky aside. If it weren't for the weird Mennonite food, I would like very much to be her friend." --Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This and Leave the Building Quickly
Forty was not fabulous to poet and professor Janzen (Babel's Stair). In the same week, she was dumped by her husband for Bob, the guy from Gay.com, and suffered an injury in a car accident. Our devastated author did the logical thing and headed back home to her parent's house and the conservative Mennonite community in which she was raised. This soulful, affecting first memoir renders a potentially off-putting subject-the Mennonite community in America-engrossing and will enchant anyone who has ever gone back home after suffering a setback. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/09.] Readalike: Sarah Thyre's Dark at the Roots.-Elizabeth Brinkley, Granite Falls, WA Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
"This book is not just beautiful and intelligent, but also painfully -- even wincingly -- funny. It is rare that I literally laugh out loud while I'm reading, but Rhoda Janzen's voice -- singular, deadpan, sharp-witted and honest -- slayed me, with audible results. I have a list already of about fourteen friends who need to read this book. I will insist that they read it. Because simply put, this is the most delightful memoir I've read in ages." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love "This is an intelligent, funny, wonderfully written memoir. Janzen has a gift for following her elegant prose with the perfect snarky aside. If it weren't for the weird Mennonite food, I would like very much to be her friend." --Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This and Leave the Building Quickly
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