*Mennonites Don’t Dance Nominated for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
for Best First Book – Canada and the Caribbean*

Darcie Friesen Hossack is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers, where she was mentored by Giller Prize finalist Sandra Birdsell (The Russlander, Children of the Day). Her stories have appeared in publications such as Half in the Sun (Ronsdale Press), an anthology of Mennonite literature; Rhubarb Magazine; and Prairie Journal.  Mennonites Don’t Dance collects a number of these acclaimed tales, including “Year of the Grasshopper,” whichwas nominated for the prestigious Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, and “Dandelion Wine”and “Ashes,” which were both finalists in UBC-Okanagan’s Okanagan Short Fiction Contest.

A Kelowna and Kamloops-area food columnist for the past six years, Darcie is currently working on a novel titled What Looks In, which explores the spiritual abuse and deliverance of a family divided by grief and Protestantism.

Works on Offer:

What Looks In

The Seventh Day Adventist Commune near Lumby, British Columbia, is just the place for Simon Schiltz to move his family. If only Marie, his Mennonite wife who never quite converted, would stop her hand wringing. It gets on his nerves, especially while he’s driving. Which makes it her fault, really, when the car swerves off the highway and into Duck Lake.

Twelve year old Lizzy happily beheads a family of paper dolls while her elderly babysitter toasts banana and Miracle Whip sandwiches. That evening, her father comes home smelling like lake weed.

Without Marie, the family’s voice of reason is gone. Simon retreats to his bedroom, leaving Lizzy to care for the house and her brother. Simon is prone to zealotry, though, and has always found his strength in the teachings of their church’s nineteenth-century prophet, an eccentric woman who advocated Sabbath-keeping and vegetarianism as means to gain God’s favour. So when Lizzy is caught rollerskating to rock music, he goes against his wife’s last wish.

When Lizzy attracts the attention of a fanatical young man who everyone has dismissed as harmless, she soon finds herself being taken away from the Silver Hills Commune as well. The next day, she walks up to the farmhouse doorstep of her mother’s favourite sister in Saskatchewan, as her father drives away.

Nettie and Henry, a pair of Mennonite farmers, are unlike anyone Lizzy has known.  Henry can kill a mouse from across the room by taking careful aim with his Bible. And Nettie fries hamburgers by first measuring lard into a pan to the depth of her first knuckle. Together they teach Lizzy to gather eggs and milk cows, while showing her that God and love have nothing to do with peanut butter loaf.

When Lizzy’s father returns more than two years later, Lizzy is confronted with a past she’d rather leave behind, and a father who has turned his back on God and discovered worship in the bottom of an alcohol bottle. Lizzy has a choice. Will she turn away and let her father slip into darkness? Or will she reach in and try to pull him out?

Manuscript forthcoming
Rights: World 


Mennonites Don’t Dance
Thistledown Press, September 2010

*A Globe and Mail 2011 Best First Fiction selection and the runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award*

Mennonites Don't Dance stories is a collection of eleven short stories, each set on the Canadian prairies where Darcie Friesen Hossack spent her childhood. Together the stories form a picture of family, often torn apart at the seams. They explore the ties between young and grown children and their parents and grandparents, generational sins and redemption.

Manuscript available
Rights available: Thistledown Press has world, HSW Literary Agency is selling

Praise for Mennonites Don’t Dance:

“There’s an unfussy purity of expression here, and of narrative control, that sometimes recalls the short fiction of Alistair MacLeod. Images come cleanly to the mind’s eye while the prose itself recedes. The other MacLeodian element is Hossack’s stealthy way with emotion. She never tells you how to feel. When you do find your heart opening to these characters, it rises from their authenticity, and a sure authorial hand with the interplay of surprise and inevitability.”

-- The Globe and Mail

“This slender book of 11 short stories is a complex treasure. Each story is wrapped in themes of anger, guilt and the Mennonite work ethic. Thankfully, the jagged edges of this treasure are gilded, occasionally, with grace and hope….[Hossack’s] writing is crisp, evocative and spellbinding, her characters and plots strong….With black humour and shrewd wit, [the stories] explore family relationships….Hossack's writing may remind readers of Manitoba-born Mennonite authors Patrick Friesen and Miriam Toews. Like The Shunning and A Complicated Kindness, the stories here illuminate the sad reality that not all of Mennonite religion and culture is healthy. And no family is easy.”

-- The Winnipeg Free Press

“Hossack captures well the mien of the descendants of the early Mennonite settlers in southern Saskatchewan faced with struggle after struggle to survive, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, not realizing they have choices about attitude even when they seem to be losing….These people, like the kittens in one story, suffocate and die when confined or break like delicate teacups when dropped. Yet there is a near-hidden shining to them. Mixed in with their frailties are love of family, prayer, thankfulness, generosity, faith and the ability to forgive even the ugliest actions, even murder….”

-- Mennonite Weekly Review

“Mennonites Don’t Dance is a collection of stories that provide a peek into the lives of a culture.  Hossack has written these with compassion and eloquence.  I urge you to pick up a copy of this book and become acquainted with characters described so close to the bone you will be unable to separate them from small pieces of yourself.”

-- The Calgary Beacon

“This vibrant collection of short fictions explores how families work, how they are torn apart, and, in spite of differences and struggles, brought back together…. Hossack’s talent, honed through education and experience, is showcased in this polished collection, and is reflected in the relatable, realistic characters and situations she creates.”

-- Pearl Luke, author of Commonwealth Prize-winning Burning Ground, for BookClubBuddy.com

“Darcie Hossack’s stories reverberate with what has been left unsaid, the silence between people that speaks of betrayal, forgiveness, and the power of love to prevail. This is a fine debut by a very promising writer.”

-- Sandra Birdsell, author of Children of the Day

“Uncompromising and often devastating, the stories in this collection prove the title true—both literally and metaphorically—but these very constraints make the stories’ hard-won moments of joy and insight especially memorable. A vivid, breathtaking book.”

-- Andreas Schroeder, author of Shaking it Rough and Scams, Scandals and Skulduggery

“Darcie Hossack introduces a culture in which dancing is verboten but the sensual pleasures of food are celebrated with artery-clogging abandon; life is cruel but rich in moments of grace. With unflinching honesty, black humour and compassion, she serves up prose as richly palatable as cream gravy.”

-- Betty Jane Hegerat, author of Delivery

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