Miriam Toews' Books

2020's pandemic lock down was many things: abrupt, dark, slow, correct, strange, cozy, etc etc etc. It was also the time I finally got around to reading anything by Manitoba-born author Miriam Toews. Beloved by many, I knew that the day would eventually come to take in her writing, but other books had always seemed to take precedence. In June of 2014, she actually gave the commencement speech at my undergrad graduation ceremony. She spoke candidly about the history of mental health struggles within herself and her family. It was clear then that this is a person who is not overly precious about what's made her. For sure this commencement speech was a departure from what is usually seen at these kinds of events. Mostly because it was real. It felt real, anyways. And my experience of her books (& a series of exchanged emails between the two of us) has so far affirmed that feeling.

As is typical, I read A Complicated Kindness first. Ripped through it. The way in which she captures the listlessness of adolescence for a largely "abandoned" younger sibling in religious rural Manitoba was so perfect. It was also devastating. I cried so many multiple times. I put it down and immediately felt the grief of having to leave those characters behind. That feeling when you finish a story told through whichever medium and instantly miss spending time with the people within it. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" etc etc etc. The saving grace here was that, at the very least, I'd be able to return to her writing, if not these exact beloved characters. So I did the next typical thing, and moved onto All My Puny Sorrows. Hardly a chapter in I suddenly was like, "woah....". There were striking similarities between this one and A Complicated Kindness: detached sister, suicidal father, resilient mother, protagonist who really wants/needs to get her shit together, religion, irreverence, the list goes on. Although the story of this one differed dramatically from the first I had read - in terms of narrative, time period, character relations - it was strikingly similar. And holy smokes, that felt so good. In a time where our real-world lives had been flipped upside down, returning to the essences of these characters felt like coming home.

After AMPS I read Summer of My Amazing Luck, then A Boy of Good Breeding, then Swing Low: A Life, then The Flying Troutmans, then Women Talking, then Irma Voth and then, in the summer of 2022, I read Fight Night.

Each of her books, in some way or another, exists inside the same constellation, the same universe. As a lover of continuity, I LOVE the long-game exercise of re-writing and re-imagining the same characters into new and different iterations of an experience. The parameters of that are so exciting to me as a writer. While I have yet to play this long-game myself, I know that one day I will. To create a series of texts (whether they be poems or plays... maybe I try both) that all exist in relationship to one another. Her take on this was a "seeing what's possible - as demonstrated by someone else's writing" kind of experience for me.

In Miriam's writing no one ever really dies, is ever actually gone, because they will always come back in a new story in a new way. Given another chance to get it right. Or to just get it. And maybe this groundhog day style of writing means endless torture for her characters, but ALSO maybe it means endless processing, (re-)connecting and learning. For them and for us and, obviously, for Miriam.

Here's one of my favorite moments. It comes from All My Puny Sorrows:

I brought Elf a shiny purple pillow the size of a rolled-up sleeping bag with silver dragonflies embroidered into the satin. I got back into my mom's car and drove to the drive-through beer vendor at the Grant Park Inn and bought a two-four of Extra Old Stock, then stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a pack of cigarettes, Player's Extra Light. Whatever extra thing I could buy, I would. I bought an extra-big Oh Henry! bar too and drove to my mother's high rise apartment overlooking the Assiniboine River where I hunkered down with my supplies all ready to wait it out. It was spring breakup time when the ice on the river begins to thaw and crack and large frozen slabs grind and scrape against each other and make a horrible screaming noise as they're dragged downstream by the current. Spring does not come easily to this city.

I am always hesitant to name anything as my "favorite". And there isn't just one way to qualify or quantify what makes a "favorite". But I've loved all of her books? I burn through them? They have inspired me and my writing so big? Our slow correspondence over the last 2-3 years has been reflective, generous and consistent? Probably this means she is *one of* my favorite authors.