Purchase
A witty, beleaguered teenager whose family is shattered by fundamentalist Christianity balances grief and hope in this coming-of-age novel. Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, she spends her days piecing together why her mother and sister left.
Counterpoint
August 2005
On Sale: August 17, 2005
264 pages ISBN: 1582433224 EAN: 9781582433226 Trade Size
Add to Wish List
Fiction | Young Adult
In this stunning coming-of-age novel, award-winner Miriam
Toews balances grief and hope in the voice of a witty,
beleaguered teenager whose family is shattered by
fundamentalist Christianity "Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing,"
Nomi Nickel tells us at the beginning of A Complicated
Kindness. Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, her days
are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have
disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy
Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of
East Village. Not the East Village in New York City where
Nomi would prefer to live, but an oppressive town founded by
Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada. This darkly funny novel is the world according to the
unforgettable Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen-year-old
trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in
the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's
droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an
eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member
lands on a collision course with the only community any of
them have ever known. A work of fierce humor and tragedy by
a writer who has taken the American market by storm, this
searing, tender, comic testament to family love will break
your heart.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|