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A: The whole notion of Godlessness, and the irony of this viciousness, the depravity – I’m not a religious person, so I wouldn’t use the word “sinfulness” of these acts, but certainly the conservative Mennonites would. This is a very religious community that considers itself, defines itself as a community completely devoted and committed and obedient to God, one would think to a benevolent God, but also to a punishing God.

These are Mennonites who believe in heaven and hell, sin and forgiveness. This is something that I explore in my work but it’s also something that I, growing up in my traditional conservative Mennonite community, when I became a teenager, I started to understand the profound hypocrisy, the sanctimony, the authoritarianism, this culture of control, or rules, of punishment, all of these things that seemed to me to be so far, far away from the presence of God. It was that conflict that has enraged me for so many years.

Q: Is that why you’re not religious yourself?

A: That’s part of the reason. I’m not sure, even if I hadn’t had a religious upbringing, if I would be religious now. But certainly it’s taken me quite a long time to understand that I can have a personal relationship with God if I choose to that exists outside of this religious framework. Because what I saw, from the so-called religious men – and they were always men – in my community was not something I associated with God or goodness.

In the book, the women, and August, too, are trying to make sense of things, trying to answer questions, trying to make plans, but within the context of their faith. The women want to keep their faith, they want to think, and they want to protect their children. So what these women think, plan, feel, within the context of their faith, might be different than others without that faith-based or religious background. In these types of closed, ultra-religious colonies, that faith sort of disappears and it all becomes about these absurd, ridiculous rules by which they have to live.