BOOKISHGAL

Despite the low-key nature of the action in Beverly Lewis’s latest book, The Secret , I couldn’t put it down.

You don’t normally expect that reaction to a story following an Amish family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

But the drama in this book is personal, as we watch the main character, Grace Byler, try to keep her family together and deal with her mother’s mysterious departure and her father’s near-collapse, all the while trying to decide whether or not she should marry her beau.

The Byler family’s crisis, centred on their mother’s secret, is played out against the way of life in the Amish community itself. This world view is presented with deep respect, not portrayed as “old fashioned” so much as it is merely simpler, with much more sharing of both joys and burdens. There is never any condescension. Nor is there any judgement of the “outside” world; the reader never feels condemned for living differently. In fact, you might actually feel a little envy.

But there could have been some condemnation, because there are two plotlines in this book: the main one, focusing on Grace and her family, and another that follows Heather, a young woman from outside, who faces a troubling medical diagnosis. The two stories seem unrelated at first, but finally intersect near the end, when Heather comes to stay at a bed and breakfast within the Amish community. If anyone begins to question the lifestyle and pace of the outside world, she’s the one, and yet even she may come to recognize and choose the best of both worlds in time.

There are undoubtedly tensions in the Amish lifestyle, though, as Grace discovers while she tries to handle her family’s crisis. Despite the simplicity of that way of life, relationships remain complex, and deep feelings are difficult to navigate, as they are in any society. But this community’s rules, and their teachings against preoccupation with “self,” collide with the fact that in this crisis, the community members need reassurance of their worth. They need comfort.

And the secret, when it’s finally revealed, might leave a reader from the outside world wondering why the fuss was quite so great. Not that the secret is minor, but we “outsiders” are more used to dealing with this sort of thing. Yet the very rules of the community in which Grace and her mother live are what have made this secret so difficult to face, made it loom so large.

This book, it turns out, is something of a “stage-setter,” because it’s only the first in Lewis’s new series, “Seasons of Grace.” So although some questions are answered — Grace does decide whether or not to get married, we do learn her mother’s secret, and Heather does come to live in the community — nothing is entirely resolved. We’ve only just begun to plumb the depths of all these relationships, and these stories will continue into later books.

This disappointed me at first, since I hadn’t realized (my own fault) till late in the book that these plots weren’t going to be wound up right away. But now I just can’t wait for the next book. While Beverly Lewis is herself a Christian (though not raised Amish), her faith never comes through as preachy or in your face. She strikes an excellent balance, simply telling the story of people of faith while never saying to the reader, “You’d better adopt this faith too.”

The story was foremost — sweet without being saccharine, a tale of a culture that values community, good food, hearty work, and decent living.

(And I confess — after the beautiful picture Lewis paints, now I really want to visit Lancaster County, PA, to see this lovely region from which my own Mennonite ancestors migrated to Canada, over a century ago.)

(And P.S. - if you read my “Wondrous Words ” yesterday, you’ll see that the woman in the picture on the book is wearing a “kapp,” the hair covering Amish women wear.)

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