A Complicated Kindness

by Miriam Toews | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 1582433216 Global Overview for this book
Registered by goatgrrl of New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on 1/10/2006
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Received from my boss, Lucie, as part of a post-Christmas holidays book bag, now added to my TBR pile.

Journal Entry 2 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Thursday, March 16, 2006
A Complicated Kindness tells the story of Nomi Nickel, a teenager in the early 1980s who lives with her father in a "low brick bungalow" in the fictional town of East Village, Manitoba (based on the author's home town of Steinbach). Nomi’s family, and Nomi's town, could be any bright, iconoclastic family in any small, conservative town, but it happens East Village is a Mennonite community, populated by modern-day followers of 16th century Dutch evangelist Menno Simons.

East Village is a limited, claustrophobic place full of people whose self-punishing dogma hurts everyone around them, even as their actions -- on occasion -- transmit genuine caring. "Shunning" (banishing community members from all contact with their families and the village) is commonplace, and Nomi's pastor uncle Hans ("Hands") Rosenfeldt, aka "the Mouth", is responsible for much of it. As Nomi observes, "He's in love with the notion of shame and he traffics the shit like a schoolground pusher, spreading it around but never personally using."

This is a great book, heartbreaking but simultaneously reassuring, and Nomi is a wonderful, memorable character, destined to join the ranks of female superheros of Canadian fiction like Hagar Shipley (The Stone Angel), Daisy Goodwill (The Stone Diaries) and Madeleine McCarthy (The Way the Crow Flies).

You can read reviews of A Complicated Kindness in the Guardian here, the Georgia Straight here,

(Photo: Mennonite girls at the Mennonite Heritage Centre, Steinbach, Manitoba.)

Journal Entry 3 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Friday, March 17, 2006
Passed along to my co-worker Megan, to read at her leisure and pass along when she's done.

Released 17 yrs ago (6/30/2006 UTC) at Tree's Organic Coffee House on Granville Street in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll be leaving this book somewhere within Trees Organic Coffeehouse (450 Granville Street), around 4:15 pm today. Best wishes and happy reading to whomever finds it!

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