Losing her father and sister to suicide has left an indelible mark on author Miriam Toews. In the sardonic and original A Truce That Is Not Peace, her 10th work, she seeks to come to terms with that legacy of loss.
The title and epigraph are from a Christian Wiman poem that expresses yearning for "coherence that is not/ 'closure.' " Toews (All My Puny Sorrows; Swing Low) builds the memoir around the conceit of preparing for a "Conversación" in Mexico City on the topic "Why do I write?" What follows is not a straightforward answer but a raft of discursive attempts at one. For instance, the inclusion of long letters to her late sister, Marj, shows Toews fulfilling a promise ("Why do I write? Because she asked me to"). In them, Toews recalls a shoestring 1982 tour of Europe with an egotistical boyfriend and the angst preceding the publication of her first novel in the mid-1990s. Reminiscences of early jobs, therapist appointments, and her octogenarian mother's and grandchildren's antics share space with whimsical plans to start a "Wind Museum" and quotations from other authors. Extended stream-of-consciousness sections are interspersed with shorter fragments; together, they constitute a meditation on the fine line separating randomness and meaning.
Alternating past and present and flowing by free association, this is something of a cross between a memoir and a commonplace book. "Is writing the acceptable alternative to killing oneself?" Toews asks. For her, writing is indeed a bulwark against despair. The result here is more incisive than sad--a heartening encouragement to persist. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck