P. L. Gaus’s Ohio Amish Journal

I‘ve been nosing around Holmes County, Ohio, for twenty-five years, looking for those little insights and memories that so often go into one of my Ohio Amish Mysteries, even though I didn’t start writing the mysteries until 1995. So I’ll admit to you that when I started exploring the Amish communities there, I didn’t know I would eventually write about Amish culture. I was just curious, like so many people are, and I would have to say that at first I was no different than any of the thousands of “English” tourists who go there every year. But Amish culture is more popular than ever these days, and Holmes County has become a favorite destination for day trippers in Ohio - so much so that the place is overrun with a congestion of cars and tour buses – all traveling up and down the blacktop roads that used to be quiet country lanes. In fact, in the last twenty-five years, tourism has changed Holmes County more than anything.  But that is a topic for another day. My point here is that I learned long ago to get off the blacktop roads onto the lesser-traveled gravel lanes in Holmes County, and unlike the average tourist, I have learned how to find those special little gems of culture and lifestyle that are necessary to my stories.

That’s how I got this photograph of new buggy wheels stacked against a wall in a wheel shop west of the little town of Benton, Ohio. The young Amish lads who worked there were taking a lunch break when I arrived, and none of them got up to talk to me. Plainly they could see that an English tourist like me was not going to buy a wheel. If they ignored me, maybe I’d go away. After all, it was their lunch time, and I was just a nosy tourist with my camera. But there against the wall was this stack of unfinished buggy wheels, and for my own satisfaction, I grabbed a shot of it before I backed out the door and went on my way.

I’ve been saving that memory for one of my stories. I’ll send Professor Branden into the shop to interview an Amish boy about a murder of some English miscreant, and there they will have a chat while standing beside the buggy wheels that are stacked there for finishing after a lazy lunch. I’ll make the lads in the shop mildly disdainful of the Professor’s intrusion, and it’ll all tie in nicely with the theme of the story – maybe something about a local fellow who grew weary of the tourists. Maybe it will even be a tourist who ends up murdered, with an Amish lad who is suspected of doing it. Of course the professor won’t believe that – no Amish person would ever be a murderer, and my readers all know that when they start one of my mysteries.

So, I’ll just stay off the blacktop roads. I’ll travel those narrow gravel lanes that stretch out over a hilltop meadow or run into a stand of timber. That’s where you find the authentic Amish insights and memories, anyway. If you go to Holmes County, I suggest you do the same. Maybe you’ll find that wheel shop. Maybe those lads will have learned that tourists like to buy authentic Amish goods. You could put the buggy wheel in your garden, and you could put your memory of the purchase in that special, authentic place in your mind where you remind yourself that you explored Holmes County the right way, at least that one time.

The first two reviews of my sixth Ohio Amish Mystery (Separate from the World – Ohio University Press, July, 2008) have been published – one in Publisher’s Weekly and the other in Kirkus Reviews – and they are both very good. Authors are usually nervous (at least I am) waiting for reviews of a new book, and when they come in, you read them so fast the first time that you don’t really get it all. Good, you’ll say to yourself – nothing bad there. Take a breath. Relax. Now read it slowly so you can see everything that is there.

It’s the bad reviews that cause you to do this. Every author gets one sooner or later, and you just have to learn to accept it. It’s not like there is a suitable place for an author to make counter arguments or complaints. Reviewers know what they like and what they don’t like, and they are good at spotting weaknesses. So, when good reviews come in, it is all the more gratifying.

This time both reviews contained accurate summaries of the plot. The names of the characters were all spelled correctly. Both reviewers understood the implications of the work. In one for instance, it was stated that the story presented “A perceptive look at problems that have no easy solutions.” Hurray! That’s what I set out to do two years ago when I designed the plot sequences for Separate from the World. In the other review, we read: “a convincing plot and credible, sympathetic characters” make this “another winner in this fine regional series.”

So, that’s excellent news. I’ll take these first reviews out on the porch this evening and read them again with a cool drink. There are other reviews to come, no doubt, and I’d like to savor each good one that comes in.