Renovating Heaven

Hilarious, bizarre and heart-breaking by turns, this novel in triptych about Mennonite life in Canada from the 1950s to the 1970s fills in the gap between Rudy Wiebe's "Of This Earth" (a generation older) and Miriam Toews' "A Complicated Kindness" (a generation younger). Leaving Germany with little more than their 16th century Anabaptist faith and lifestyle to guide them, Schroeder's family settles on a small Fraser Valley farm in British Columbia and proceeds to try making sense of the perplexing mores and values of "The English" who surround them. The family finds solace, but not much else, within the local Mennonite congregation founded by Schroeder's grandfather, every single one of whose sixty-two members is related to Schroeder on his mother's side. In more forgiving times, these stories might have been described as largely autobiographical. However, given today's more stringent standards—not to mention Schroeder's enthusiastic dedication to all the elements of...