Was it good seeing Nic and your mother? asks Janice. Well, it’s called self-ridicule, whispers Elf, but so quietly that Janice doesn’t hear it. So we can safely say you are not ridiculous, Elfrieda.
Neither am I, says a voice unexpectedly from behind the curtain, her roommate. She means ridiculous.Įlfrieda, you’re not being ridiculed, okay? says Janice. Her green eyes are replicas of my father’s, spooky and beautiful and unprotected from the raw bloodiness of the world. If I squint across the room at Elf I can change her eyes into dark forests and her lashes into tangled branches. How are you feeling right now? Janice is saying. You could throw it into a fast river and dive for it. I guess you could choke on a ring if you decided to swallow it, or pound it against your head for several weeks non-stop until you did some damage. The Washington Post says, “In the crucible of genius, tears and laughter are ground into some magical elixir that seems like the essence of life.” And this is Toews at her finest: a story that is as much comedy as it is tragedy, a goodbye grin from the friend who taught you how to live.īelow, we share with you a short excerpt from the novel, which is out now and available for purchase here at your local independent bookstore.Įlf has beautiful hands, not ravaged by time or sun because she doesn’t go out much.
After Elf’s latest attempt, Yoli must quickly determine how to keep her family from falling apart, how to keep her own heart from breaking, and what it means to love someone who wants to die.Īll My Puny Sorrows is the latest novel from Miriam Toews, one of Canada’s most beloved authors not only because her work is rich with deep human feeling and compassion, but because her observations are knife-sharp and her books wickedly funny. While on the surface Elfrieda’s is an enviable life (she’s a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi’s a mess (she’s divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close-raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf’s desire to end her own life.
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