Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 15 June 2024

"A complicated kindness" by Miriam Toews

An audio book.

Nomi (her PoV), 16, is living with her father Ray. Her mother Trudy left a while after sister Tash (3 years older than Nomi) did, having shown signs of mental distress. They belong(ed) to a fundamentalist religion in a town of fundamentalists. Nomi thinks a lot about Trudy, puzzling over memories. She has a boyfriend Travis. She goes on the pill, smokes, drinks, misses school. She had overheard Tash tell their mother that she didn't believe (no surprise) and their mother reply that she didn't believe either. We later learn that she'd been excommunicated. Perhaps she left so that the family could stay. She didn't take her passport.

Her dad leaves - so they she could stay? The house is all hers, plus the car.

A page-turner - not for the plot but for the many interesting anecdotes and details - e.g.

  • She asks her father what her first word was. He said "don't". He asks what her second word was. He couldn't remember. She thought that he should have made something up - "go" for example.
  • "It's hard to grieve in a town where everything is God's will."
  • "staring at coupons as if they were showing signs of coming out of a long coma."

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