Mennonite in a litlle black dress - A Memoir of Going Home

Janzen, the author of a poetry collection called “Babel’s Stair,” teaches English and creative writing at Hope College in Michigan. Those aren’t promising details, I know — readers may suspect that an academic poet’s memoir about failed marriage, debilitating pain and a strict religious upbringing would be dry, self- pitying and overly earnest. But “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” is snort-up-your-coffee funny, breezy yet profound, and poetic without trying. In fact, the whole book reads as if Janzen had dictated it to her best non-Menno friend, in her bathrobe, over cups of tea.