Author Rhoda Janzen on going home again

Rhoda Janzen (courtesy photo)

After a debilitating car accident, her husband left her and she was stuck with a mortgage she couldn’t afford, the author returned home to her Mennonite parents, an adventure which she chronicles in her new memoir, “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.” She will be reading at Book Passage in the Ferry Building on Nov. 4.

What inspired you to write the book? Writing e-mails to friends. I was trained as a poet and it never occurred to me to write a memoir. I have a colleague who teaches creative writing, and she said [to] save the e-mails and thought they were funny. She encouraged me. At the time, I was in that place where nothing feels like a risk when everything has been taken away.

How important was humor in your writing? I don’t think of myself as a comedic writer. Mainly I was trying to keep the tone I was using when I was writing e-mails with my friends about how funny it was to be back at home with my folks.

Did you ever expect you’d return home? No I didn’t, not like that. I thought I’d do some visiting but I never expected I’d be following them around to church and their functions.

Did you ever consider going back, but not embracing the Mennonite culture? I never thought of going back and not participating in the community. To be there is to participate, and it never would’ve occurred to me to move back to the Central Valley of Fresno without that in mind.