Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is The Rose Trilogy: The Thorn (2010), The Judgment (2011) and The Mercy (2011) by Beverly Lewis, published by Bethany House, $14.95 each.

Funk Wiebe

Beverly Lewis is a consistent force on trade fiction best-seller lists, with 14 million books in print. Her stories about Amish romances resonate with specific readers. Why? Likely for the same reasons that I and other girls once devoured the Elsie Dinsmore series of romantic novels by Martha Finley, set in the Civil War South.

In Finley’s books, Elsie converts to Christianity in her wealthy father’s absence and then clashes with him, particularly over honoring the Sabbath. Despite the long, pious dialogue (which we skipped), we couldn’t get enough of the stories of steadfast Elsie and her harsh father.

Lewis sets up a similar tension: children versus parents, Amish faith versus the secular world.

The main characters are sisters, Hen and Rose, reared in a loving Amish home. Hen, in a sudden rebellious act during her rumspringa (running around) years, marries an “Eng­lischer” and breaks ties with her family. Then, just as suddenly, several years later, she has a change of heart and yearns for the Amish way of life. She deserts her husband to return home with her child.

Will Hen sacrifice her marriage, which the Amish see as a lifelong commitment, along with her jeans and sweaters, TV and visits to shopping malls, for the more conservative way of life?

Hen’s sister, Rose, of highly marriageable age, has forgone the privilege of rumspring-ing. Yet a few years later she finds herself engaged to Levi, who is enamored by a beautiful young Amish woman from another community. Disheartened, Rose almost commits herself to another young man, but he is enamored by rubber-tired tractors and cars. What a tangled web of emotions!

Will she find true happiness as a lifelong Maedl (single woman), or will Nick, the rebellious foster son of the bishop, whom Rose secretly loves, return to the Amish faith and to her? And will the beloved bishop, Nick’s foster father, be forever silenced because Nick has not said the “kneeling prayer” at baptism?

Lewis’ characters live in an idyllic world confounded by opposites: worldly/unworldly, plain clothes/fancy clothes, insiders/outsiders, men’s work/women’s work, secrets in a world overlaid with gossip. No one is concerned about self-development, nor does the political world intrude. There are no interruptions by cell phones or TV. The phone shanty is used sparingly and deliberately, as are the hired cars and drivers that transport the Amish to events outside their horse-and-buggy world.

These novels emphasize the commonplace presented in ordinary fashion. They tell the story of how these particular Amish live and the traditions that have formed them — like sticky buns, always two or three named desserts, and long conversations about what seems like trivia but is the stuff of life.