The Blue Jar

Darlene Money was a writer in Mississauga, Ontario.

Anne Konrad’s first novel is, in fact, a collection of short stories about the experiences of a Mennonite family, the Klassens, immigrants from Russia seeking a better life for their family in northern Alberta in the 1930s and ‘40s. Alongside the customs of a new land, strict Mennonite traditions relax, but only a little; religion remains a dominant influence in daily life on the farms around the community of Poplar Hill, where most of the novel is set. From the opening chapter, an account of the death and funeral of the oldest Klassen daughter, Helen, to the engagement and wedding of the next oldest, Tina, near the end of the book, my interest rarely flagged.

Each episode is told from the point of view of Anne, one of the youngest of the ten Klassen children, in a simple style with lots of dialogue often flavored with German. It is a mark of the author’s skill that the low-key accounts of apparently humdrum events become instead revelations of life’s joys and sorrows, evoking a full range of human emotions. While one reads about deaths and births, misunderstandings, disappointments, triumphs, and love, joys and sorrows seem to be evenly balanced. But the last two chapters, dealing with marital infidelity and death in childbirth among the Klassen neighbours, end the book on a pessimistic note. The title of the last chapter, “Seeding,” seems particularly ironic, since the neighbour who has lost his wife and baby sells his farm equipment and moves to British Columbia. So, too, do the Klassens.

The family’s departure seems too abrupt after all that has gone before, but that is only a minor drawback in a fine first novel.