A Complicated Kindness

Throughout the novel, the Mennonite community is portrayed as a repressive, hypocritical community that is unswerving in its beliefs to the detriment of anyone who has questions about their faith, particularly women. The culture of East Village is a distortion of the tenets of the Mennonite faith, valuing authority and power instead of a steadfast faith rooted in tradition. Nomi sees this in how it has harmed both Tash and Trudie and its lingering effects on her and Ray, who is the only male character in the novel that presents an alternative to the dominant strain of Mennonite masculinity (and suffers for it).

Hans “The Mouth” Rosenfeldt is the clearest example: though the details aren’t known to Nomi, she sees that he turned to authoritarian impulses due to his own hurt. He cannot bear any challenges to his power in the town, as he knows it’s a façade, much like the recreated town that serves as a tourist attraction. He wields excommunication as a threat and a cudgel. And, notably, he’s willing to use it on his sister at the first legitimate opportunity. It’s clear to Nomi and the reader that abuse of power is baked into the culture of East Village and the Mennonite faith.

Hypocrisy is rampant in East Village, too, and the community’s attempt to depict itself as a quaint throwback to an earlier time is revealed to be an artifice, much like its recreated barns and windmills. Nomi relates the Mennonite relationship with French villages in the area and the Mennonites’ exploitation during World War II when the conscientious objector Mennonites took advantage of the French women’s economic need. Like most teenagers in the town, she also engages in alcohol and drug use and is in many ways a typical teenager, despite the looming influence of the church.

Nomi’s personal struggle with faith reflects the psychological damage done by the church’s abuses of power. At 13, Nomi’s devout adherence to Mennonite beliefs means that she sees her sister’s questioning of the faith as an existential threat. This leads to conflict within the family that is only exacerbated when Nomi realizes that her mother questions the faith, too. When the church excommunicates Trudie, Nomi’s faith is shattered, leading to a schism in her thinking: she wants to cling to those beliefs, especially because they are Ray’s beliefs and he’s the only family she has left, but she knows that they are the source of great harm. At the same time, she sees Ray’s faith, which is genuine and makes room for the conflict in Nomi without withholding love and acceptance, suggesting that goodness is possible in the Mennonite faith.

For three years, Nomi and Ray have lived in the wake of their family’s breaking: Tash left willingly, as she had lost her belief in the Mennonite faith and saw no future for herself in East Village; Trudie left soon after rather than live as an excommunicated person. Ray and Nomi stay together in stasis, refusing to address their situation overtly, choosing instead to live in isolated silence. Nomi, meanwhile, acts out in the town, recreating the same crises that affected Tash and Trudie.

In the Nickel household, unspoken grief is dealt with through Nomi’s sarcasm and Ray’s unswerving faith, but there’s a clear denial in their behavior. Nomi is deeply loyal to her father and identifies with him, ignoring how she is like her sister and mother. One of the friction points between herself and Travis is his criticism of Ray. Ray, meanwhile, has retreated from the community and is comfortable as a pariah. He identifies with discarded objects at the dump and drives through the night, clear signs that he has unresolved trauma and a diminished sense of self.

Nomi has complicated feelings of blame toward her mother and sister. As a younger woman, she saw Tash’s attempts to question their faith and grow into her own person as a betrayal since it meant that Nomi’s belief that the family would be together for eternity was under threat. That her mother sided with Tash is a further betrayal of what Nomi believed. As a result of this rift, she is torn when she starts to question the faith herself, and she is unable to conceive of any future for herself that fulfills the dream of a reunited family in East Village and allows her to be her own person. As a result, she unwittingly recreates the events of three years ago: she strikes out at The Mouth and the Mennonite church; she burns Travis’s truck when he has sex with someone else, mirroring her mother’s infidelity and the vicious response from Mr. Quiring when she ended it; and she battles and questions the authority at school like Tash did.

Nomi’s crisis is only solved through another recreation: she is abandoned again, this time by Ray. It’s clear that the intent is for Nomi to be free to heal, and the novel ends with the hope that that process is possible now that she is freed of the guilt and trauma of being the one left behind.