I always enjoy reading books and posting about them on these reviews on my blog post and, in general that is especially true when I write about books which were written by my numerous friends who are authors. This is not one of those times because I have just read and am now writing about a new book by one of my friends whom I like especially well and I do not like this book nearly as much as I have three others she has written and which I have also reviewed on this blog. The friend and author to whom I refer is Emily Steiner, a young conservative Mennonite woman whom I have known for about three years. I respect her talent, her intelligence, her writing, her books, and her commitment to her religion. I value our friendship and we correspond these days by e-mail since she is teaching in a small Mennonite school in Central Michigan. We met accidentally, or serendipitously as I prefer to believe, in Old Mill Park near my home in West Liberty, Kentucky, and slightly farther away from her childhood home in Crockett, Kentucky. She was dressed in a traditional Mennonite long dress and head covering and carrying a lap top which is odd among Mennonites. I had already read her book, "Under The Bridge", which is linked above and which is the first book in her triumvirate of books about a coal mining family in Harlan County Kentucky in the union organizing efforts of the 1920's. While I disagreed with the book's position that Christianity and trade unionism are not necessarily compatible, I liked the book and her writing quite well overall. I struck up a conversation with her by asking these exact words, "I don't mean to bother you, but are you Emily Steiner?" She responded "Yes!" and I told her about having read her book and we had about a half hour conversation about her book, writing on both our parts, Appalachia, and writers I knew. We established what has been a good, honest, communicative, and respectful friendship beginning that day despite the difficulty of an older, married, non-Mennonite man and a younger, single, Mennonite woman having a friendship which respects the social barriers her religion requires in such cases. We sometimes read each other's writing, sometimes e-mail, and, if a community occasion makes a face to face meeting possible in her community of origin, we sometimes talk a while in plain view of other Mennonite observers. It has helped that I am fairly well known by numerous members of her congregation because I have done business with them for quite a few years and have always respected and honored the constraints and barriers their religion places on contacts with outsiders.
So, to repeat myself, this is a difficult review to write since I like and respect the author a great deal and am not particularly fond of the book. But please do not assume that I am saying you, dear reader, will not like the book. It has merit as does all the work I have ever read by Emily Steiner. So, in order to be absolutely fair to my friend, Emily Steiner, I searched out two other reviews on the internet from other sources who have read the book to see what they thought about it. An anonymous reviewer on the Goodreads website has this to say about the book: ...A Time to Keep Silence shows the loneliness and misunderstanding that singles can face in a tight-knit Mennonite community. This is a book that an older single may relate to, and those who are married can read to understand the challenges of singles. I agree wholeheartedly with this reviewers statement that the book "shows the loneliness and misunderstanding that singles can face in a tight-knit Mennonite community". From my point of view, the most valuable thing I got from reading the book is that it gave me an improved understanding of the religious based social customs which govern dating and consideration of marriage among young conservative Mennonites. But, having lived my life in the greater non-Mennonite community, I tend to believe that the social customs in question place undue burdens on those young church members. I was left with the impression that, in most cases, young Mennonite women are almost required to accept the first young Mennonite man whom they agree to date as the person they will marry even before their first date. That is a bit too restrictive for my blood.
The second review I chose to read about "A Time For Silence" is by a relatively young Mennonite widow who describes herself on her blog as follows: I am Gina, a Mennonite mom who writes about books, broccoli, and baking bread. In May, 2017 my husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, which took his life two years later in May, 2019. These pages share my journey of searching for joy with cancer and widowhood." I know nothing about Gina other than what I have read on her blog and the fact that Emily Steiner has told me she knows Gina. As it turns out, I have just discovered that Gina was the person whose writing was used in part on the Goodreads website for the first quotation I used about the book since the language is identical on that website to part of Gina's review on her blog which I recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about Mennonites, their religion, and the self-sufficient lifestyle of gardening, canning, freezing, cooking, and other things such as homeschooling and church based childhood education. I should also say that the photo of "A Time To Keep Silence" which I have used above is taken from Gina's blog, "HomeJoys" as linked above. I have been unable to locate other independent reviews of the book at this time and will attempt to use quotations in others I might locate in the future to update this review.
Now to more adequately address my personal issues with this book which Emily Steiner has told me is selling better than any of her previous books. In fact, she and I had one e-mail exchange when she was actually at her printer, Haines Printing, watching the presses run so she could pick up several hundred more copies of this book. That could be an indication that I am wrong about the book. But, the first critique I have of the book is that it is a story which is told in 341 pages and could, I believe, have been told in a more literary manner in 200 or 250 pages at the most. I have told Emily in an e-mail that I think that a lot of dialogue does little to advance the plot and I stick to that assessment. The book is broken into 60 relatively short chapters, the longest of which is about 10 pages and several are 1 page. Emily has explained this to me as a choice she made "to keep people turning pages". I did keep reading to the end and I will buy and read the other two books which are to follow in this series about the main characters, Justin and Monica, whom I expect to be married by the end of the third book. I was also put off mildly by one section in the book in which the protagonist, Monica, who is working in a coffee shop she and a friend, Ida Belle, have recently bought and are operating as single Mennonite women. Monica becomes scared of a rough looking non-Mennonite man who is staying in the coffee shop too long, asking a few too many questions and is dressed somewhat inappropriately by Mennonite standards. To see single Mennonite women operating a business as Monica and Ida Belle do in the book is uncommon but not totally rare. I regularly do business in a bulk food store which is owned by a woman in Emily Steiner's community of origin. I also know of a bakery business in that same community which was operated for a time by the former Mennonite divorcee daughter of a devout Mennonite friend of mine. But I have never known of a Mennonite who pre-judged a person to the degree I perceived in that section of the book. Monica fears are used as a tension builder before the male in whom she is interested, Justin, enters the shop to buy coffee for himself and his employees. Monica fights the desire to ask Justin to rescue her from the perceived danger of the rough look man and allows Justin to leave before making the request. The book also winds to a conclusion without either Monica or Justin taking any action to move their relationship to another level. It simply ends with the two of them still thinking about the possibility of dating each other but doing nothing to bring it about. Both are afraid of entering a dating relationship because they have both been unsuccessful in one prior dating relationship. Both fear the disapproval of the community if they enter a relationship which does not end in marriage. In the real world, almost no one, except Mennonites apparently, gets married to the first person they date. In my opinion, no one, not even young Mennonites, should feel compelled to marry the first person who asks them to consider a dating relationship. I sincerely hope the next two books in this series are better than this one. But use your own judgment about whether or not you want to read this book, especially if you have read other books by Emily Steiner and enjoyed them. This could turn out to be the very book you have been hoping you would find.
"A Time To Keep Silence" is available directly from the author, Emily Steiner, for $12.50 plus $3.00 shipping for a total price of $15.50 by check or money order from: Emily Steiner, 5532 N. Shepherd Road, Rosebush, Michigan 48878. If you have questions, Emily will answer her cell phone in person or return your call if you need to leave a message at 606-495-8090. But, if you call, please keep in mind that she is a school teacher. Call after 4pm on weekdays, never on Sunday.
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