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Review by Alice Ann Robertson
In her new book, The Shunning, award-winning author Beverly Lewis, weaves a tale of the destructive power of a family secret. As twenty-two-year-old Katie Lapp's wedding to Bishop John Beiler nears, she makes a trip to the attic to look at her mother's wedding dress before stitching her own. Besides the deep blue Amish wedding garment with white apron and cape for purity, Katie discovers something that touches the lives of everyone in her Amish community.Katie's heart has always been filled with the good intention of following strict Amish rules, but the "fancy" ways of the outside world beguile her. As a child, Katie would pull off her white organdy kapp and let her auburn hair tumble free when no one was looking. She loved to see the golden streaks that showed in the sun like ribbons in her hair. Then there is the problem of her music. The church taught that music was meant to come from hymnbooks for the purpose of worshiping God, but wonderful tunes seem to constantly form in her mind. More than once she is caught humming or singing the forbidden melodies. These melodies link her with her first love, Dan Fisher. In secret they wrote songs and sang them. When Dan apparently drowned in a boating accident, Katie hid his guitar and still manages to steal moments away from Amish eyes and ears to play and sing.
Guilty of these unconfessed sins, Katie struggles with her worthiness. Is she good enough to be the wife of an Amish bishop? She wrestles with the constant pull she feels between the Amish rules for life and the person she seems to be. Katie is not the only one in her family with conflicting feelings. Tormented by fear, her mother Rebecca resolves to carry the secret to her grave. She wonders what the consequences would be if Katie discovered the secret.
But on the eve of Katie's wedding, circumstances cause Rebecca and her husband to reveal the secret. Katie anticipates that something she has always known deep down is about to be exposed. The unexpected revelation causes havoc for her and everyone around her. You won't want to miss the surprise ending. Beverly Lewis's books are among those on the C.S. Lewis Noteworthy List. Author of nearly forty books, she is a former schoolteacher. Lewis's writing is as pure and clear as the Amish life, yet full of the mystery and tension embedded there. The story's authenticity flows from Lewis's life in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and the inspiration she found in her formerly Amish grandmother's convictions. The Shunning is the first book in her new series, The Heritage of Lancaster County.
We have long idealized the plain and seemingly simple life of the Amish. Remember Pat Boone's tender song, "Friendly Persuasion?" Lewis's book gives us a glimpse into the cloistered world of the Amish and the traumatic, devastating discipline known as The Shunning. Perhaps after reading the book we will remember that the Amish are just like us. They, too, have problems.
Alice Ann Robertson is an author and reviewer in Nashville, TN.
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