Janet and Dovie, a Mennonite mother and daughter, accompany each other through the events of their lives as their religious principles define their love for God, man, and each other

A non-linear passion play; an eloquent demand for a return to the roots of our being, our most ancient and elemental nature—air, earth, fire, water.

Fiction. This is a story that tracks a father whose wish is to die in the open, open to the elements. He's a Mennonite, a pacifist, obsessed with Stalin and other tyrants, and he's determined to redefine power, rethink what it is to be good. With his daughter, and with his friend Irene, he finds collaborators in his passion for trespass. This book has moments where the writing is both beautiful and grotesque: fitting, as the book itself tackles the fantastic contradictions of the human experience. Janet Kauffman writes with a clarity of voice that cuts clean through the brush of language but leaves no trail we couldn't turn back even if we wanted to.