Christian Bride, Muslim Mosque

Paul Wiebe’s New Novel, ‘Christian Bride, Muslim Mosque,’ Based on Ancestor’s Saga

Fictionalized Memoir of How Mennonite Boy Discovers Why His Great-Grandmother Had Been Married in a Mosque

All families have their secrets, but few have one as remarkable as the secret held by the fictive Reisender clan of “Inverness,” Idaho.

Paul Wiebe gives a fictionalized account of how he learned his nonfictional family’s secret in his latest novel, “Christian Bride, Muslim Mosque” (ISBN 978-0-9718599-3-7, Komos Books, http://www.komosbooks.com).

In the Dedication, Wiebe writes, “This is for the members of the Wiebe clan, both sentient and bone-dry, who lived in and around the modest metropolis of Aberdeen, Idaho from the year 1944, when I entered the first grade, to 1956, when I left my native valley for many distant cities.”

The story itself involves a weighty mystery.

Young John Reisender is puzzled. Why did Great-grandma get married in a Muslim mosque out in the wilds of Central Asia?

Before he is let in on the Reisender family secret, John finds himself excommunicated (temporarily) from the Mennonite religion, discovers how his maternal grandfather had escaped from czarist Russia, plays undertaker at the funeral of his piano teacher’s cat, takes a crash course in Nietzsche from the caretaker of the city dump, becomes an unsung accidental “hero” in a high school football game, escapes death on a spelunking expedition, and falls in lust with a girl whose derriere reminds him of that of the WWII pinup, Betty Grable.

As he prepares to leave Inverness for the Gomorrahs of the world, John is entrusted with the family secret, which concerns a band of Mennonites on a trek to the middle of Asia and the hospitality of a Muslim village in Turkmenistan back in the 1880s.

“Christian Bride, Muslim Mosque” is available through http://www.komosbooks.com and Amazon.

About the Author

Paul Wiebe was a professor of comparative religion until he converted to the joys of writing comic fiction. Born and reared in the Idaho outback, he has lived in Newton (KS), Atlanta, Chicago, Wichita, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Gig Harbor (WA), and Upland (CA). He now resides in Fort Collins (CO) with his wife, Eleanor. His first novel, “Benedict XVI,” was published in 2003, two years before Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger chose that papal name. His other novels are “Dead White Male” and “The Church of the Comic Spirit.” Wiebe may be contacted at pagewebsr@earthlink.net.