What Mennonite Girls Are Good For [Paperback]

A Debutiful Best Debut Short Story Collection of 2025

In these eleven stories, a Mennonite ministers daughter moves from a youthful, exuberant understanding of her familys faith toward religious doubt. Stumbling comically at times, Ruthie navigates life with and without the rules in which shes been raised. Always physical, often sexual, Ruthies search for personal truth leads her from missionary outposts in Paraguay and Brazil to Mennonite towns in northern Indiana and central Kansas, a vandalized Native American site, womens healthcare clinics, and lingerie shops on the secular, melancholy East Coast. Ultimately, these stories consider how faith and identity intertwine, the cost of abandoning ones cultural heritage, and the complicated longing for return.

In these eleven stories, a Mennonite minister’s daughter moves from a youthful, exuberant understanding of her family’s faith toward religious doubt. Stumbling comically at times, Ruthie navigates life with and without the rules in which she’s been raised. Always physical, often sexual, Ruthie’s search for personal truth leads her from missionary outposts in Paraguay and Brazil to Mennonite towns in northern Indiana and central Kansas. These stories consider how faith and identity intertwine, the cost of abandoning one’s cultural heritage, and the complicated longing for return.“What a magnificent book. So scary, so sad, so strange, so brutal, so true, so expertly written, so brave, so forlornly Mennonite, so fiercely beautiful in so many ways. Ruthie is a creature who will live forever inside me. Is this a book of stories, a novel, neither of these, both of these? Who cares? It’s art. High, heart-thumping, unforgettable art. I was shaken by this book, but I was also made more wholly human.”—Tim O’Brien, author,The Things They Carried“In these marvelous, deeply suspenseful stories, Searsls#