Plain Secrets, by Joe MacKall
June 8, 2007 by Jessica
Prior to reading this book, my knowledge of the Amish could be summed up like so: “Some sort of religious thing, I think… with buggies?” Can’t quite consider myself an expert yet, but Plain Secrets taught me a lot. It was akin to learning about the Mormons in Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, though with a bit less historical detail and no murder.
For the past ten years, magazine editor Joe MacKall has lived next-door to an Amish family in Ohio. Proximity alone has taught him more about the Amish than most Americans ever learn. But MacKall has been more than a passive observer of Amish life. He is friends with the people next door, as close to an Amish family as an outsider can possibly get. Plain Secrets represents a decade’s worth of observations of the Amish lifestyle.
Or, to be more accurate, the book looks at the lifestyle of the Swartzentruber Amish. I hadn’t realized it, but not all Amish are created equal. There are several different groups of Amish, of which the Swartzentrubers are the most radically conservative. They are as far removed from mainstream America as it is possible to get.
MacKall’s writing is simple and accessible but not at all dumbed down. He has a keen, sometimes humorous eye for detail and setting, with a humble storytelling style reminiscent of Wendell Berry. MacKall is a fairly objective observer, though he does interject his own opinions and occasional judgments; he is, after all, a participant in the lives of the Swartzentrubers, albeit tangentially. I recommend the book as a nice quick read (only took me a few hours) about a fascinating subject.
