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Blood of the Prodigal |
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 Blood of the Prodigal:An Ohio Amish Mystery by P. L. Gaus Ohio University Press, 1999 ISBN 0821412779 Reviewed by John A. Broussard, PhD For many, reading a mystery novel is a pleasant and relaxing way to spend an evening. If, in addition, the story tells us something about a culture few of us are aware of, that evening is enriched with an especially satisfying element. Blood of the Prodigal is just such a book. Amish bishop Eli Miller approaches Millersburg University Professor Michael Branden to ask for help in finding his missing son, Jonah. He doesn’t want to go to the police, for reasons he refuses to divulge, but Branden has some inklings of what is going on. Ten years before the story opens, Jonah Miller had committed the sin of pride, and his father had pronounced a ban on him. Disappearing into the "English" community, Jonah left a pregnant girl behind who bears his child, Jeremiah. Shortly after the birth she leaves the baby with his grandfather and then commits suicide. Now, the ten-year old Jeremiah is abducted by his father Jonah. It is at this point that the mystery begins. Why does the elder Miller merely want his son to be found - nothing more? Why is he not asking that the grandson be returned to the community? And why are Jonah’s long years away from his roots so shrouded in mystery? Professor Branden, with the help of his wife and a sheriff’s deputy, gradually finds answers to these many questions while searching for Jonah and Jeremiah. The reader, following Branden along the trail, learns about the Mennonites who have splintered into numerous Amish sects - some Old Order, some far less conservative. It was Jonah’s fate to be born into one of the communities where rolled cuffs on trousers are considered sinful. Where wearing a belt rather than suspenders, shaving one’s beard or even having rubber tires on one’s buggy may lead to the dreaded shunning that drives some of the young men out to live with the English. Many so banned never return. Blood of the Prodigal centers on one of the Amish who has drifted away and yet, strangely, hovers on the fringe of the world he abandoned. |
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