Miriam Toews

A work of fierce originality and brilliance, Miriam Toews' novel explores the ties that bind families together and the forces that tear them apart. It is the world according to Nomi Nickel, a heartbreakingly bewildered and wry young woman trapped in a small Mennonite town that seeks to set her on the path to righteousness and smother her at the same time. 'Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing,' Nomi tells us at the beginning of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her father Ray, her days are spent piecing together the reasons her mother Trudie and her sister Tash have gone missing, and trying to figure out what she can do to avoid a career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken abattoir on the outskirts of East Village - not the neighbourhood in Manhattan where Nomi most wants to live but the small town in southern Manitoba. East Village is ministered by Hans, Nomi's pious uncle, otherwise known as The Mouth. As Nomi gets to the bottom of the truth behind her mother's and sister's disappearances, she finds herself on a direct collision course with her uncle and the only community she has ever known. In this funny, compassionate and moving novel, Miriam Toews has created a character who will stay in the hearts of readers long after they've put the book down.

A Complicated Kindness

In this stunning coming-of-age novel, award-winner Miriam Toews balances grief and hope in the voice of a witty, beleaguered teenager whose family is shattered by fundamentalist Christianity "Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing," Nomi Nickel tells us at the beginning of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, her days are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of East Village. Not the East Village in New York City where Nomi would prefer to live, but an oppressive town founded by Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada. This darkly funny novel is the world according to the unforgettable Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen-year-old trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member lands on a collision course with the only community any of them have ever known. A work of fierce humor and tragedy by a writer who has taken the American market by storm, this searing, tender, comic testament to family love will break your heart.

Connie Meade

These were simple, barely considered statements that Trudie threw out like confetti and forgot in a second that shed said but they stuck to me like the kind of wood tick that crawİs through your ear into your brain and lays eggs. 

I went back into my bedroom and knelt at my bed the way did when I was a kid. I folded my hands and pressed the ton knuckle joints of my thumbs hard into my forehead. Dear God. I don't know what I want or who I am. Apparently you do. Um .. thar's great. Never mind. You have a terrible reputation here. You should know that. Oh, but I guess you do know that. Save me now. Or when it's convenient. We could run away together. This is stupid. What am I doing? I guess this is a prayer. I fel like an idiot, but I guess you knew that already, too. My sister said that god is music. Goodbye. Amen. I lay in my bed and waited for that thick, sweet feeling to wash over me, for that unreal semi-conscious state where the story begins and takes on a life of its own and all you have to do is close your eyes and give in and let go and give in and let go and go and go and go.

The only real conversation Bert and I ever had was an argument and I forget what it was. All I remember about it is Bert saying end of story. End of Story. And how it left me speechless and depressed. But that's because endings are my weakness and I hate them and mistrust anybody who knows when they occur,

I'm sure that my mother's silent raging against the simplistic- ness of this town and her church could produce avalanches, typhoons and earthquakes all over the world. But there is kindness here, a complicated kindness. You can see it sometimes in the eyes of people when they look at you and dont know what to say. When they ask me how my dad is, for instance, and mean how am I managing without my mother. Even Mr. Quiring, the teacher I am disappointing on a regular basis, periodically gives me a break. Says he knows things must be a little difficult at home. Offers to give me extensions, says he's praying for us. I don't mind.

But Nomi, she’d say, there was always the possibility of forgiveness. Remember that. I didn’t like that part. It muddied my crystal-clear waters. But probably not, I’d say. Probably not. 

This was a bedtime ritual. I dug the shunning story. I couldn’t wait to hear it. What a gem. It completely reinforced my belief system of right and wrong. And everyone had to stand up in church and publicly denounce them. Yeah! I’d say. Denounce them! I’d always loved the sound of that. 

I think he would have walked forever with my mom if she suggested it. They’d be walking still. They could be in New York by now. 

Doing the laundry can be a really interesting and intriguing process. Emptying people's pockets, noticing odours and stains and items, folding the clothes afterwards, opening drawers, putting everything away. If I were asked by the FBI to infiltrate the Kremlin l'd definitely get a job there doing the laundry. It's where the drama starts. What a gold mine. 

Ryan Mateyk

This book has been sitting unread on my shelf since it was first published and I had just never gotten around to reading it but I'm glad I finally took the time to do so. After reading Women Talking late last year, I am now a certified Miriam Toews fan.

Sabina 

My introduction to Miriam Toews started with ‘Women Talking’ and I thought that was a beautifully written, 5 star book; I continued on with ‘All My Puny Sorrows’ which was so different and yet still a 5 star book. Now? ‘A Complicated Kindness’ was written in a way Ive never read, nor felt, before. Giving it 5 stars isn’t enough. It’s so beautiful and so devastating and I read every single page more than once because I couldn’t get over how absolutely stunning this novel is. 

Considering I have absolutely nothing in common with Nomi, Miriam Toews made me feel everything so deeply, and I understood Nomi’s struggles so well.

I’ll never get over this book.

Tiana Coates

Aviya 

Jen Baron

Stephanie Hume 

Kay Sutherland

Emily Burns

Andrea Mack

Kemie G

Jen Sorenson

Lexi Kilmartin

Jill Clark

Aynsley

Hunter Sloan

hannahpalangio@icloud.com

Andrew Louis

Fran Lewis

Stephanie Honour

Finn Salter

Neil L

Susan Forsythe

Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City's East Village. Instead she's trapped in East Village, Manitoba, a small town whose population is Mennonite: “the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you're a teenager.” East Village is a town with no train and no bar whose job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir or churning butter for tourists at the pioneer village. Ministered with an iron fist by Nomi's uncle Hans, a.k.a. The Mouth of Darkness, East Village is a town that's tall on rules and short on fun: no dancing, drinking, rock 'n' roll, recreational sex, swimming, make-up, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o'clock. As the novel begins, Nomi struggles to cope with the back-to-back departures three years earlier of Tash, her beautiful and mouthy sister, and Trudie, her warm and spirited mother. She lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher whose love is unconditional but whose parenting skills amount to benign neglect. Father and daughter deal with their losses in very different ways. Ray, a committed elder of the church, seeks to create an artificial sense of order by reorganizing the city dump late at night. Nomi, on the other hand, favours chaos as she tries to blunt her pain through “drugs and imagination.” Together they live in a limbo of unanswered questions. Nomi's first person narrative shifts effortlessly between the present and the past. Within the present, Nomi goes through the motions of finishing high school while flagrantly rebelling against Mennonite tradition. She hangs out on Suicide Hill, hooks up with a boy named Travis, goes on the Pill, wanders around town, skips class and cranks Led Zeppelin. But the past is never far from her mind as she remembers happy times with her mother and sister — as well as the painful events that led them to flee town. Throughout, in a voice both defiant and vulnerable, she offers hilarious and heartbreaking reflections on life, death, family, faith and love. Eventually Nomi's grief — and a growing sense of hypocrisy — cause her to spiral ever downward to a climax that seems at once startling and inevitable. But even when one more loss is heaped on her piles of losses, Nomi maintains hope and finds the imagination and willingness to envision what lies beyond. Few novels in recent years have generated as much excitement as A Complicated Kindness. Winner of the Governor General's Award and a Giller Prize Finalist, Miriam Toews's third novel has earned both critical acclaim and a long and steady position on our national bestseller lists. In the Globe and Mail, author Bill Richardson writes the following: “There is so much that's accomplished and fine. The momentum of the narrative, the quality of the storytelling, the startling images, the brilliant rendering of a time and place, the observant, cataloguing eye of the writer, her great grace. But if I had to name Miriam Toews's crowning achievement, it would be the creation of Nomi Nickel, who deserves to take her place beside Daisy Goodwill Flett, Pi Patel and Hagar Shipley as a brilliantly realized character for whom the reader comes to care, okay, comes to love.” This town is so severe. And silent. It makes me crazy, the silence. I wonder if a person can die from it. The town office building has a giant filing cabinet full of death certificates that say choked to death on his own anger or suffocated from unexpressed feelings of unhappiness. Silentium. People here just can't wait to die, it seems. It's the main event. The only reason we're not all snuffed at birth is because that would reduce our suffering by a lifetime. My guidance counsellor has suggested to me that I change my attitude about this place and learn to love it. But I do, I told her. Oh, that's rich, she said. That's rich. . . We're Mennonites. After Dukhobors who show up naked in court we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you're a teenager. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man named Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing and he and his followers were beaten up and killed or forced to conform all over Holland, Poland, and Russia until they, at least some of them, finally landed right here where I sit. Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking , temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock'n'roll, having sex for fun, swimming, makeup, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities, or staying up past nine o'clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno. —from A Complicated Kindness From the Hardcover edition.

A Complicated Kindness

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