I discovered Miriam Toews 20 years ago at the Vancouver Writers Festival.
I was so impressed with her style that I’ve been following her ever since. In fact, like few other writers, I read every one of her books, regardless of the subject matter.
It’s probably a good thing that I committed to her latest book, Women Talking, before reading the back cover.
This latest novel is based on the true story of a Mennonite colony in Bolivia, where women, some just children, were drugged and gang-raped by men from the colony, night after night, for several years.
Toews explores different aspects of the Mennonite religion in a variety of different stories.
Her most well-known work, A Complicated Kindness, depicts life in a small Canadian town, which mirrors Steinbach, Man. where Toews grew up as the second daughter in a Mennonite family.
In each of her books, however, Toews experiments with storytelling techniques and plays with narrative style. Women Talking is another creative adventure and another success.
For the duration of this book, a group of women, who have been abused in the night, hide out in a hay barn and discuss whether they are going to attempt to escape the colony. Resembling a play, much of the action is repeated through dialogue.
This limiting structure is purposeful, giving the reader a sense of what it’s like to be on the fringe of a society, where you can only get information from talking to others, not from the source itself.
As the reader is excluded from witnessing the real events, the women are excluded from education, from decision-making, and are essentially more like the cattle and horses in the barn where they meet.
Toews has already been decorated with a lengthy list of major Canadian literary awards; Women Talking is destined to add to her tally of awards.
Happily, another of my must-read authors published a new book this fall. Patrick DeWitt, the author of the exceptional Sisters Brothers, which won the Giller, Governor General’s Award and the Man Booker Prize, has just released his fourth book, French Exit.
This quirky tale features a rich English woman who loses her fortune and flees to France with her grown son and a cat named Frank, who turns out to be the embodiment of her late, and unlovable husband.
This excellent setup — as odd as you’d expect from DeWitt — has much dark humour and ultimately, terrible tragedy. It plays with the idea of a French exit — an escape without goodbyes.
But like his third book, Undermajordomo Minor, this latest doesn’t quite measure up to Sisters Brothers.
DeWitt is still on my must-read list, but unlike Toews, I might peruse the back cover before blindly diving in.
Heather Allen is a book reviewer for Black Press that lives in the Okanagan.