Ira Wagler on Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father
Ira Wagler‘s best-selling 2011 memoir Growing Up Amish told the story of his life as a young man, and his eventual decision to leave the Amish behind.
Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father is his just-released follow-up.
It covers subsequent events in his life, and in particular, his relationship with his father, David L. Wagler. Among David’s accomplishments, he was co-founder of the Amish monthly Family Life.
Ira is with us today to answer some questions on Broken Roads. I finished it earlier this week and really enjoyed it. If you liked Growing Up Amish
Broken Roads 2-Book Giveaway
Ira is kindly offering two books as a giveaway for Amish America readers. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post.
The giveaway is limited to US addresses only. I will draw two winners at random and post them next week.
Ira Wagler on Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father
Amish America: Give us a recap – what did Growing Up Amish cover, and where does this one pick up? What do we learn next in your story?
Ira Wagler: Growing Up Amish ended as I was leaving the Amish for the last time. The young man following his own path, in his own way, in his own time. Breaking free. A classic coming of age tale, woven into Amish culture. It wasn’t really planned that way, but Broken Roads is the story of coming home. Of returning again and again to the father and the people that I had left behind. Not because I wanted to stay there, but because I wanted to keep my relationships with my family.
Amish America: Who was your father?
Ira Wagler: David L. Wagler was among the most famous Amish men of his lifetime, or any time. A giant of a man among his people. He shook the earth, wherever he went. He was a writer, an intellectual, a defender of the Amish faith and lifestyle. Some of the apologetics he got tangled up in were a little rough and tumble. There was always some strident shouting going on at the peripheral of things. Background noise, I guess. He never backed away from a good fight, um, I mean, argument. That got his blood going. Other than that, his writings were pretty calm. Interesting. Well written. Writing was his calling, and he devoted his life to following that calling.
Now that you’ve done this twice, I’m curious about the process of doing this one vs. Growing Up Amish. Which was “tougher” to write? How did you approach this book versus your first? Did you plan to do a second book or did things just unfold that way?
When I wrote Growing Up Amish, I was totally focused on getting that story told. Nothing more, and no further. I didn’t think much about a second book. I figured it would come when it came. And that’s what happened. The second book is the story of many broken roads: Marriage exploding, betrayal by a best friend, and reconnecting with my estranged family, things a lot of people deal with every day. I would not say I planned the second book. It came on its own, with a bit of nudging from the publisher and my agent. I got stuck for a full year in the writing of it. Hachette, my publisher, was very patient.
Give us a couple of things we’ll learn in Broken Roads that you’ve not shared elsewhere.
Most of the details of my courtship of Ellen were never told anywhere before. The early transformation from Amish to English, I had not written much about any of that. Most of the book comes from themes that I had at least touched on before. Rewritten in a coherent thread.
Three Amish communities primarily feature in this part of your story – Aylmer, Ontario; Bloomfield, Iowa; and Daviess County, Indiana. Why are these places significant? Which one feels closest to “home” and why?
That’s a great question, one that makes me think. Go where I hadn’t been before, much. Any kind of childhood reflections and dreams, the setting is always in Aylmer. That’s where it actually was, of course. Bloomfield comes to mind naturally as home in my young adult years. I saw a lot of turmoil in that place, and it’s the place I kept returning to. So both Aylmer and Bloomfield have strong claims to my subconscious recollections of home. Daviess is home to my ancestral memories, not so much my real ones.
What are some of the aspects of Amish life you appreciate today, even as you live apart from the Amish?
I very much appreciate the comfortable, solid flow of their lifestyle. Emphasis on tradition, holding on to a lot of good things. Habits that go back generations, habits that get passed on because they work. I live among the Amish because I like to live among them. They are my people. I just don’t want to live that way, that’s all.
What did you learn that you didn’t know before writing this book?
Hmm. I guess I would say the process was different. More measured. I think my voice is more mature. The first book was the young man, fighting to get out. The second book is an older man coming home, looking back on some hard things. Ordinary things. Just hard.
Tell us where to find your blog and where to get the book.
My blog: www.irawagler.com
If a bookstore is open where you live, call and ask them to stock it. Many places are closed down, so you can order the book online. Just google for links or search on Amazon.
When can we expect book #3?
No idea. When working on each of my first two books, I focused totally on the story I wanted to tell. The first book, leaving. The second book, returning and burying my father. I thought no further than getting to the end of the story I was telling.
So, I’m saying, I haven’t thought of it. I don’t know. Maybe soon, if the market makes it happen. Or maybe not, too. Whatever or whenever it is, book #3 will be real or it won’t be at all.
You can get Broken Roads at Amazon
Update: Broken Roads Book Winners & Excerpt
We’ve got two winners today of Ira Wagler’s Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father. If you missed it, Ira discussed the book in our interview last week. This book follows up Ira’s first memoir Growing Up Amish.
We also have the full prologue of Broken Roads to share with you today. Thanks to Ira and Hatchette Book Group for making that possible.
Broken Roads Giveaway Winners
I chose two winners at random using random.org. They are:
Comment #23: Carole Van Voorhis
Comment #76: Stephen
Congratulations, Carole and Stephen. You are each the winner of a copy of Broken Roads, courtesy of Ira. Please send a mailing address to me at ewesner(at)gmail(d0t)com, and Ira will have the books sent out to you.
Excerpt from Broken Roads: Returning To My Amish Father
PROLOGUE
THE AMISH HAVE been around for a long, long time. Hundreds of years. Today, around three hundred and thirty thousand of these incredibly unique people are scattered throughout the United States and Canada. Out of seven-plus billion people in the world. For such a small group, they have a tremendous presence in English society—not only in North America but globally. They are much romanticized, but that’s not their fault.
I was born one of them. Ira Wagler, the ninth of eleven children of David and Ida Mae Wagler, who emerged from the remote and rather despised Amish community in Daviess County, Indiana. I was the fifth son of a fifth son. My parents fled Daviess, as Dad was convinced the place was going bad. He didn’t want to raise his family there. So I grew up among my people in smaller communities. It was a long hard road, to break away. I guess I’m the one who remembers and who talks about things a lot, things that happened long ago. I wrote the story of my journey in my first book, Growing Up Amish, published in 2011.
Until my father and a few of his peers launched Pathway Publishers in the 1960s, the Amish never had much of a voice of their own. With Family Life magazine and the other Pathway publications, that voice was presented in a
coherent structure for the first time. It was an extraordinary achievement. Nothing like that had ever been attempted before. My father and his peers had a vision and pursued it. With unceasing labor, at great financial risk, and with potential loss of prestige. The venture succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations.
They published a lot of good, solid stuff, especially on historical subjects, and common-sense articles on farming and other issues of specific interest to the Amish. And yet I have always felt that the fictional writings and op-eds published by my father and others at Pathway were less than honest. Too much gooey mush. Too didactic. Too pat. Too formulaic and predictable. All the same answers, all the time. All the loose ends neatly tied up in a little package for the reader to remember.
Maybe they were projecting a moral ideal they knew was impossible. I think they were trying to live that ideal, too. To present themselves and their community as an example. But it’s impossible to be perfect. You can’t be a shining city on a hill by proclaiming your own greatness and glory. And real life isn’t a nice little list of neatly packaged formulas, either. Never has been. Never will be.
Over the years, I have wondered many times if my father and his contemporaries ever questioned the path they chose. The God they served. Did they ever despair that He exists? Question their faith? Or was it always cut and dried, black and white? When their children left and they cut them off cold, did it not tear at them deep inside? The hard, ruthless laws of shunning, did they ever think twice about them? And wish it were not so? Did they ever struggle with such issues? Or did their harsh, cold facades truly reflect their hearts?
I like to think they struggled sometimes. Weren’t so sure of themselves. It would have been human. But I don’t know that. Because they never told us. Maybe they thought it would show weakness. It wouldn’t have. To the contrary, it would have shown strength. And honesty.
And I think, too, of my grandfather, Joseph K. Wagler. My father’s father, a man I never met. Because he died when my father was young. What kind of man was he? I’ll never know. Nothing was ever told, other than the vacant, shallow depictions of a stern, godly father and deacon in the church. There is so much more I wonder about. How he looked. The man he was in the community. As he labored in the fields among his children. The sound of his voice when he prayed the morning prayer and read Scripture aloud in church. What gave him joy? And what were his quirks?
And my great-grandfather, Christian Wagler, who shot himself in the chest back in 1891 when he was thirty-six years old. His destitute widow remained, and his young sons and daughters. Christian was buried as a lost soul, there in the Stoll graveyard in Daviess County, Indiana. They knew, the Daviess people, that he was damned to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. They knew, too, that the shameful stain of his suicide would haunt his seed forever.
Who was Christian? There are no photos. How did he look? Tall or short? And the demons he faced, in the dark recesses of his tortured soul, that finally overwhelmed him. Why did he do it? How was his last morning? What were his last words?
I’ll never know. I can only conjecture, because no one ever honestly wrote the details at the time. And I accept that. It’s who they were. Some things were just not done. Some layers not peeled back, the dark secrets carefully guarded. The old way, of the old generations.
But they left us poorer for our lack of knowledge of who they were. And who we are. Every culture and every generation brings forth its giants and its common people. Its common stories. Its tragedies. And its epics. But the characters involved cannot be seen and will not be heard and will be forgotten if no one speaks their names.
And tells of them. As they were. In their struggles. Their triumphs. With their flaws. Their impossible visions. Their failures. And their shining accomplishments. As they marched across the stage on which we now play our own roles.
That’s why I write.
Book
Sounds like a good book. I’m in!
Broken Roads
I did read Growing Up Amish and I would love to read Ira’s follow up book Broken Roads. Thank You!
Interesting and intriguing
Enjoyed reading your interview. Look forward to reading your book.
My family comes from Alsace-Lorraine orginally and speak the native language of the Hutterites and Amish.
My culture is basically gone. So have studies the Amish to learn about Alsace. There is much similarity in customs, traditions, food and cooking and language. I enjoy reading everything I can get about the Amish. Thank you for writing your biography. I really appreciate it.
great storyteller
I’ve always loved Ira’s blog, though I haven’t read it for quite a while. Every so often I have to re-read his post “Calling Amos” – a top notch example of his skill.
Broken Roads book
Read the first book and enjoyed it very much – looking forward to the second. From neighboring York County, I enjoy living in the vicinity of 2 local Amish districts and I enjoy learning about my Amish neighbors
Very much enjoyed the first book and would really like to have a copy of this new one! Either way, I know I will be reading it!
such an interesting read !
I would love a chance to read either of these books !
Ira's book
A book such as Ira’s may open the reality door for many. Today’s Amish fiction books
tend to have similar and overused plots, themes, situations, and characters. The unreality becomes repetitious, and even with a somewhat desperate and saturated marketing,it all
may be a sign for a more accurate, realistic, and fresh type of writing for the reader’s
experience of less fantasy and more reality.
Book Giveaway
It would be interesting to read this book. The first one was enjoyable.
Book giveaway
I am very intrigued by the Amish, I will be looking for the first book and would enjoy reading this book.
Interesting to learn the struggles of a young man coming out of the Amish. I bet, it must have been hard to write the 2nd book and probably having to relive some things that are sometimes better to push down than to bring them back to the surface. Looking forward to reading this book.
Bookgive away
Hi everyone I like to read all different types of amish books.I am very drawn to read as many Amish books that I can and I would like to read this book also. Thank you so much and God bless
Ira Wagner
I so enjoyed the first book. I have reread much of it. Gives you a touch of Amish reality.
Mister Ira Wagler books giveaway
Mister Ira Wagler’s books giveaway would be an interesting venture;in,my Amish regular readings !
So far, my Amish readings are generated by female authors,(i e.Beverly Lewis, Wanda Brunstetter, et.al).
Let us see if author, Wagler will be my first male ;on, the most marvelous, Amish way of living out their God- given lives ! “
Interesting
I always find it interesting to hear about how people leave their Amish community and how they are afterwards
I would love to read this book..
Ira Wagler on Broken Roads Returning to my Amish Father
I would love to read you book I grew up next to the Amish my dad lived a lot like them in so many ways my home address is Pat Cain
935 E ST RT 60
MCCONNELSVILLE OHIO 43756 I am a 60 year old woman and spend NY pass time reading
Interesting book
I’d appreciate a copy of this book, which looks very interesting!
Would love to win!
Thanks for the opportunity to win! Sounds like a wonderful story!
Interested
Interested in reading this book. I’ve grown up with the zamish community here in southern Maryland. My husband actually works with a family
AMISH BOOKS
I love reading books about Amish Culture. Both fiction and non fiction.
Looking forward to reading this book. I read mostly Amish fiction as well as anything I can get my hands on that shares about the Amish and their traditions and culture and lifestyle. Thanks for the chance.
Sounds interesting
This sounds like an interesting book. I would love to win a copy.
Ira’s book
Ira’s perspective is always fresh and welcome. Thank you, Ira. Thank you, Amish America!
Returning to my Amish Father
Davis Co
I live not far from the Waglers and it is interesting to read about the Davis Co Amish and recognize landmarks that were outlined in his first book.
Would love to read this one too!
Living Among Amish
We have had Pennsylvania Amish move into Wayne County, Indiana and surrounding areas for more than 20 years.My husband and I have interacted with them in business many times. They have been a more accepting of English type of group. Now we are having Amish move in from Bern, Indiana. They are much more private. One family lives 1 mile from us. There is also rumors that land across the road may be sold to an Amish family. So I guess you could say now we are living among the Amish. Thanks for the book give way.
Thank you!
Thank you for writing your books and sharing them with us!
I love reading Amish books and anything dealing Amish
Book
I’ve been wanting to read his book for awhile now,looks like I need to get on it so I can read the second! I’d love to win so I don’t have to wait for our library to open up!
Ira wagler
Looks like a great book .we drive for the Amish in Illinois so it would be awesome to get another look at their lives
Giveaway
I love the books. I live an hour outside Lancaster PA. We visit a few times a year. My children got their names from their. Emma Rebecca and Hannah. We’d go more but Hannah is in a wc sp the trip is hard.
I would really like to read this book!