Joe Mackall is a professor of English and journalism at Ashland University and co-founder and editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. For more than 16 years he has nurtured a friendship with Samuel Shelter, his wife and nine children, who are members of the Swartzentruber Amish of Ashland Country, Ohio. They are the most conservative Amish living without gas, electric heat, indoor plumbing, refrigerators, freezers, couches, stuffed chairs, or tractors.
Mackall refuses to romanticize or to sensationalize them in this overview of their lives. He has great respect for their devotion to family, their close connection with the land, and their cohesive and supportive community life. At the same time, he wonders about the heavy hand of patriarchy and the harsh religious practices of shunning and excommunication. Mackall covers the experiences of Jonas who crossed over from Amish life to English. He also deals with the death of one of Samuel's daughters from a brain tumor and his becoming a minister.
At one point, the author calls Samuel a Renaissance man since he runs an 86-acre farm, crafts wooden furniture, raises bees, builds a barn, and is a carpenter, a mason, a well digger, and a duck raiser. No wonder the farmer and writer Wendell Berry has such a high regard for these practical people who live lightly on the earth and eschew much of the technology that is destroying the environment. Mackall calls the Amish he encounters "an amazing, fascinating, and flawed people." Some of their more curious practices include having their teeth removed and replaced with dentures to save money, their faith in the healing power of chiropractors, their tradition of men growing beards as a sign of marriage, and their refusal to send children to school beyond eighth grade.
