{"id":324,"date":"2010-08-06T08:22:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T08:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/the-most-offensive-memoir-ive-ever-read.html"},"modified":"2010-08-06T08:22:32","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T08:22:32","slug":"the-most-offensive-memoir-ive-ever-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/the-most-offensive-memoir-ive-ever-read.html","title":{"rendered":"The Most Offensive Memoir I’ve Ever Read"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"books.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It’s laugh-out-loud funny. It’s interesting. It’s crude.
\nIt’s well-written. It’s an unbelievable story. So there are lots of reasons why
\nI should have loved this book. <\/p>\n

But after about two chapters, I started skimming. In Mennonite in a Little Black Dress<\/i> by
\nRhoda Janzen, Janzen details her experience of going back home to live with her
\nMennonite parents after her bipolar, bisexual husband leaves her for a man on
\ngay dot com. Oh, and all this after she gets in a terrible car accident and
\nbreaks a lot of bones. <\/p>\n

Interesting as the story may seem, nothing really happens in
\nthis memoir. Lots of funny cracks about Mennonite culture. And some dear
\nmemories and appreciation of it too. But not movement. She doesn’t really
\nchange or grow. I guess there’s some personal healing, but that’s about it.<\/p>\n

And then she punched me in the stomach. Before I go into
\nthose details, let me explain that Rhoda Janzen is an English Professor and a
\nprofessional writer. Words matter to her. She knows their power. She chooses
\nthem with care. Let me also point out that she is a highly educated, extremely
\nintelligent woman. And finally, let me point out that she is politically
\ncorrect about everything–tolerant of her husband’s lover, politically and
\nsocially liberal.<\/p>\n

Here’s the terrible part:<\/p>\n

She writes, “I applied for seminary. You may be thinking, Are you profoundly retarded? <\/i>Or, if you
\nare more tactful: Are you partially
\nretarded?<\/i> But hey, I was in my twenties at the time…”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything so offensive and
\ninsensitive in a memoir before. And I wish I could return her book to the
\nairport bookstore where I purchased it. I didn’t link to her book because I can’t recommend it. I can only lament that fact that a woman used her cultural power to malign people who are different from her. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s laugh-out-loud funny. It’s interesting. It’s crude. It’s well-written. It’s an unbelievable story. So there are lots of reasons why I should have loved this book. But after about two chapters, I started skimming. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}