As I mentioned in a recent entry, I attended Mennonite/s Writing VII at Fresno Pacific University two weeks ago. Aside from the books that I bought at the conference, I also came away with a number of recommendations of books, and these texts have been arriving in the mail all week. I was able to order nearly all of them from amazon.com’s network of independent booksellers, but in two instances I ran into the issue of books published by Canadian companies not being readily available in the U.S. Thus I had to order Dueck’s book directly from Turnstone Press and Bergen’s book from a Canadian bookseller that I found on abebooks.com.
Bechtel, Greg. Boundary Problems. Calgary: Freehand, 2014.
Bechtel writes science fiction and is thus one of the very few Mennonite writers writing speculative fiction. This subfield is growing more and more, however, which is an exciting development.
Bergen, David. Leaving Tomorrow. Toronto: Harper, 2014.
Bergen is my favorite Mennonite novelist, and in recent years he’s been incredibly prolific, but sadly most of these books have not been published in the U.S.
Birdsell, Sandra. Night Travellers. 1982. Toronto: General, 1984.
I read this novel in stories straight through last night. What a powerful, early feminist Mennonite text!
Dueck, Dora. What You Get at Home. Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2012.
I read Dueck’s novel This Hidden Thing several years ago and thought it was only so-so, but I heard that this short story collection includes a story with a queer protagonist, and since LGBT Mennonite literature is a major interest of mine I decided to buy it.
Also, it is important to acknowledge the essential role Turnstone Press has played in support of Mennonite literature since they began publishing Mennonite writers in the 1980s. Aside from Dueck and Klassen, they have also published such heavyweights as Di Brandt, Patrick Friesen, and Miriam Toews.
Klassen, Sarah. The Wittenbergs. Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2013.
I met Klassen at the conference and she gave me a copy of one of her poetry collections for free (which I enjoyed), so I wanted to return the favor by making sure to buy one of her novels as well.
Redekop, Corey. Husk. Toronto: ECW, 2012.
This novel also apparently involves a queer protagonist.
—. Shelf Monkey. Toronto: ECW, 2007.
When I heard about Husk, I went to Redekop’s website to learn more about him and his work, and the description of Shelf Monkey (“Thomas Friesen has three goals in life. Get a job. Make friends. Find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three. … If you’ve ever thrown a book against a wall in disgust; if you’ve ever loved a novel that no one else can stand; if you obsess over the proper use of punctuation; this may be the novel for you”) was irresistible, so I bought it as well.
Snyder, Carrie. Girl Runner. New York: Harper, 2015.
I read this novel last weekend and it is excellent.
Daniel Shank Cruz 