High Bright Buggy Wheels

Luella Creighton's 1951 novel is one of the first published in Ontario to describe life inside the Mennonite community. She is a highly talented writer; her characters, although from an isolated and insular world, are extremely compelling, and the details of their now-unfamiliar daily life are fascinating. While Mennonites shun the aesthetic side of life, what the novel accurately shows is the feel of community belonging and spiritual bonding that holds members together. The novel...
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Luella Creighton's 1951 novel is one of the first published in Ontario to describe life inside the Mennonite community. She is a highly talented writer; her characters, although from an isolated and insular world, are extremely compelling, and the details of their now-unfamiliar daily life are fascinating. While Mennonites shun the aesthetic side of life, what the novel accurately shows is the feel of community belonging and spiritual bonding that holds members together. The novel recounts an inquisitive young woman leaving the community to spend time in a nearby city, learning music and dressmaking. In the events that unfold, her intellectual and spiritual horizons expand, and she enters into a forbidden liaison. Ultimately, there is tragedy and eventually difficult reconciliation. In its detailing of the little-known daily life of Ontario Mennonites, Creighton's novel is in a tradition of writers as diverse as Barbara Smucker and Miriam Toews.