By Andrew Unger
Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2020
pp 280. Softcover

Reviewed by Lukas B. Thiessen

Andrew Unger prefaces his 2020 novel Once Removed with a declaration that his book is fiction and so readers will not find allusions to real people, places, or events. And yet, Unger is the founder of the satirical Mennonite website The Daily Bonnet, and one may assume his statement was sworn on a copy of the Walrus instead of a John Deere catalogue and so holds little merit. He probably made it with his fingers crossed. After all, he squeaks in on the last page that Mennonites live in constant fear of being called before the church elders.

Unger lays out an examination of southern Manitoba’s Mennonite culture with the simple elegance of a cold midday faspa. The “sinister as Hitchcock” tale proclaimed in a blurb on the back cover by comic novelist Armin Wiebe does not appear. Unless the sinister element is the lurking possibility of Mennonite annoyance, to which Unger playfully refers, or the oppressive influence of community leaders over main character Timothy Heppner, who fears he will lose his job with the Parks and Recreation department if he publishes his gigantic tome on the history of his hometown of Edenfeld. There is nothing here so sinister as the real-life Mennonite response to the oeuvre of Miriam Toews who, disclaimer notwithstanding, is alluded to in the character of the mysterious Elsie Dyck.

Unger’s novel is all about exposure, and how problematic it is for Mennonites to plumb the depths of the community. Heppner, a modern, small-town Mennonite man, spends a large part of the story wrestling weakly with his conscience. He is drawn toward understanding the past of Edenfeld, an amalgam of every southern Manitoba town of Mennonite origin, but faces opposition from BLT Wiens, the progress-oriented mayor who loves big-box stores and disdains the preservation of historic landmarks. The conflict brings to mind the reaction of Mennonite readers to Rudy Wiebe’s groundbreaking 1962 work Peace Shall Destroy Many. Wiebe later observed, “They got angry. I was talking from the inside and exposing things that shouldn’t be exposed.” Once Removed reminds readers that exposure is inevitable with its seasonal structure: starting in Somma, then Hoafst, then Winta, and ending in the time of resurrection and rebirth of Farjoah. The past lives anew.

The novel’s title is given very different connotations on the front cover and in the story itself. On the cover is an image of a traditional Mennonite painted kitchen floor pattern, discovered and recreated by artist Margruite Krahn. The image shows the pattern visible under beige linoleum, which itself is layered with mystery, an inky emptiness. The metaphor may be that when one removes the heavy shroud which hangs over the identity of die Stillen im Lande, one finds plainness, and then when one looks deeper, there is carefully crafted beauty. In the story itself, the title comes into play in a much less sublime context – in fact it is a moment which is both starkly uncomfortable and blasé. When Heppner and his wife Katie have intercourse, the fact of which is referenced only obliquely, the narrator describes how all he can focus on is that they are fourth cousins. His wife reminds him, to lessen the discomfort, “Once removed.” This incident suggests that for Mennonites, intimacy is uncomfortable – the cause for disgust or a dismissive, yet winking, shrug.

It is difficult to tell if this book could make it on a bestseller list besides Winnipeg’s McNally Robinson’s. We have a dense Mennonite population in southern Manitoba, and as Mrs. Friesen explains to City Sheila, both members of Edenfeld’s Preservation Society, during a discussion of Elsie Dyck’s novel A Doll’s Housebarn, Sheila’s origins prevent her from recognizing the amusing material, subtext, and inside jokes.

The book is a tour-de-force through Manitoba Mennonite stereotypes, while also asking the community: But do we know who we are? Near the end of the book, Heppner’s friends Randall and Brenda from Loans search Russia for the first colony to be named Edenfeld. Neither Randall’s historic atlas nor the tattoo on Brenda’s back of all the Mennonite colonies in Russia is helpful. Mennonites may be unsuccessful when they try to find their roots, but as always, it is the journey, not the destination. For those apprehensive about acknowledging the past, Unger provides encouragement from Brenda on the topic of her first tattoo: “It was painful and I worried what my mother would think. I was also worried it wouldn’t turn out well . . . There was a lot I was worried about, but I know if I didn’t do it, I’d never do anything.”

Once Removed is not a historical account or a critique of today’s Mennonites. The novel is a warm, calm tale of small-town life, as richly textured with inside jokes as the hidden decorations on old floors, which may never be found or known and could soon be forgotten, unless others are willing to pull back the covers and share what they find beneath.