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Plain Secrets

An Outsider among the Amish

Joe Mackall

$39.99

Paperback

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English
Beacon Press
01 September 2018
"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."

By:  
Imprint:   Beacon Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 216mm,  Width: 142mm,  Spine: 18mm
Weight:   295g
ISBN:   9780807010655
ISBN 10:   0807010650
Pages:   248
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Joe Mackallis author ofThe Last Street Before Cleveland and Plain Secrets- An Outsider Among the Amish. A professor of English and journalism at Ashland University, he is coeditor of the journalRiver Teethand has written for NPR'sMorning Edition, theWashington Post, and theCleveland Plain Dealer, among other publications. He lives near Cleveland, Ohio.

Reviews for Plain Secrets: An Outsider among the Amish

Prose as graceful as it is unsentimental . . . Mackall doesn't sensationalize, romanticize, or condescend. --Brigid Brett, @lt;i@gt;Los Angeles Times@lt;/i@gt;@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; Mackall does the job beautifully, painting an intimate portrait of the family that leaves the reader feeling humbled by the common thread that's woven into all of us. --Sarah English, @lt;i@gt;Cleveland Magazine@lt;/i@gt;@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; Wonderful and enlightening . . . a loving portrait, warts and all, of an often misunderstood people. --@lt;i@gt;Booklist@lt;/i@gt;, starred review@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; An engaging personal memoir . . . neither an expose nor an outsider's fanciful romanticization of the Amish. By focusing on the loves and losses of one large Amish clan, Mackall breathes life into a complex group often idealized or caricatured. --@lt;i@gt;Publishers Weekly@lt;/i@gt;@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; In simple but elegant prose that matches the values of his subject, Joe Mackall takes us deep into the Ami


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