A Truce That Is Not Peace
Discursive, revelatory ... As fluent in the comic register as it is in the tragic ... The book is less a linear narrative than a neat pile of shattered glass, one shard picked up at a time, in no discernible order.
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A layered confrontation with the deaths, grief, and guilt that have animated her work for nearly 30 years, providing haunting insights on how to live after tragic loss ... Without the constraints of the novel—namely the need to advance a plot—Toews lets her mind loose on the page ... Discursive ... The reader bobs along in the author’s stream of consciousness, riding crests of despair, anger, and hilarity as Toews assembles the shards of her past to investigate her will to write, which is deeply entwined with her will to live.
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There are amusing stories of learning to embrace her role as the kooky grandmother to rapscallion grandchildren interspersed with clear-eyed observations about the sheer muscle it takes to care for her aging (and still delightfully sharp) mother ... Gorgeously written.
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