Ben's Wayne

The largest Amish community in the world, Holmes County, Ohio, is home to 18-year-old Wayne Weaver in 1960. Accustomed as he is to the governance of church elders and his parents, and to the ordained cycles of farming, Wayne is also growing conscious of the pulls of the outside word. These are disturbingly personified in his maverick older brother, Roy, who has left the Amish community, but remains a source of contention in the Weaver family when he visits, sporting liquor, fast cars and an expressed disdain for the Old Order. Wayne's girlfriend apparently straddles both worlds, but her untimely death leaves his questions unsolved. The central issue of Wayne's coming-of-age, while isolated from the society surrounding him, is revealed mainly through his naive vision and archaic locutions. First novelist Miller is of Amish/Mennonite heritage. (June)