If Miriam Toews (Swing Low) seems even more authoritative, more observant, more slyly hilarious and more in touch with the depth of human pain than usual in All My Puny Sorrows, readers may attribute it to personal experience. Quasi-autobiographical, the novel reflects Toews's relationship with her older sister, who committed suicide at age 51 in 2010.
Sisters Yolandi and Elfrieda grew up in a Mennonite community where the elders disapproved of the girls' independence and spirit, threatening to punish their father with a short excommunication for letting Elf have a piano. Eventually, Elf's playing became the catalyst both for her departure from the community and the informal ostracizing of her family.
Now that the sisters are grown, Yoli's life is a mess. With two divorces under her belt, teenaged offspring wreaking havoc on her maternal patience, and her Rodeo Rhonda teen fiction series on hold while she toils ineffectually at the more literary manuscript she carries around in a Safeway bag, Yoli can't get it together. By comparison, Elf's life looks perfect. She's a world-famous pianist, her husband adores her, and she's wealthy and glamorous. However, Elf keeps attempting suicide and landing in psychiatric facilities, while Yoli is the one determined to keep her alive: "She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other."
Yoli tries valiantly to shoulder her sisterly responsibilities, traveling the 2,000 miles from her home in Toronto to Elf's side in Winnipeg after each attempt, conferring with Elf's desperate husband, Nic, about treatment and providing emotional support to their mother (widowed a few years ago after her husband killed himself). When Elf asks Yoli to take her to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, Yoli must decide just how far her responsibility extends, and in which direction: saving her sister's life and hoping for her recovery, or helping end her suffering.
Despite the grim subject matter, Toews's signature wit and gift for observation make for a quick pace; she breezily leaps from Yoli's childhood memories to her present-day conversations with her sister and back again, sometimes in the space of a page. Toews captures perfectly the conflict between a family wondering why their love isn't enough and the suicidal woman whose suffering cannot be helped by their care. In the midst of so much sorrow Toews still manages to illuminate moments of joy, hilarity and sheer emotion that will leave readers weak in the knees. Both a statement of personal grief and an important look at a controversial topic, Yoli and Elf's story will catch readers off guard and capture their hearts. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: Canadian novelist Miriam Toews explores her own struggles with her older sister's suicide through a novel of two sisters, one determined to kill herself and the other determined to stop her.