A Finalist For The Governor General's Literary Award: A Transformative And Necessary Work--as Completely Unexpected As It Is Inspired--by The Award-winning Author Of The Bestselling Novels All My Puny Sorrows And A Complicated Kindness. On A Quiet June Morning In 2009, August Epp Sits Alone In The Hayloft Of A Barn, Anxiously Bent Over His Notebook. Soon Eight Women--ordinary Grandmothers, Mothers And Teenagers--will Climb The Ladder Into The Loft, And The Day's True Task Will Begin. This Task Will Be Both Simple And Subversive: August, Like The Women, Is A Traditional Mennonite, And He Has Been Asked To Record A Secret Conversation. Thus Begins This Spellbinding Novel From Award-winning Writer Miriam Toews. Gradually, As We Hear The Women's Vivid Voices Console, Tease, Admonish, Regale And Debate Each Other, We Piece Together The Reason For The Gathering: They Have Forty-eight Hours To Make A Life-altering Choice On Behalf Of All The Women And Children In The Colony. Acerbic, Funny, Tender, Sorrowful And Wise, Women Talking Is Composed Of Equal Parts Human Love And Deep Anger. It Explores The Expansive, Timeless Universe Of Thinking And Feeling About Women--and Men--in Our Contemporary World.

Toews, Miriam, 1964- author

Prentice Hall Press

Knopf Canada

United States, United States of America

"A major work by one of our most beloved and esteemed writers, the novel is based on real events that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite community where more than 100 girls and women were drugged unconscious and raped in the night by what they were told were "ghosts" or "demons." Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events. It takes place over 48 hours, as eight women hide in a hayloft while the men are in a nearby town posting bail for the perpetrators. They have come together to debate, on behalf of all the women and children in the community, whether to stay or leave before the men return. Taking minutes is the one man invited by the women to witness the conversation--a former outcast whose own surprising story is revealed as the women talk. By turns poignant, furious, witty, acerbic, tender, devastating, and heartbreaking, the voices in this extraordinary novel are unforgettable."-- Provided by publisher

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"A major work by one of our most beloved and esteemed writers, the novel is based on real events that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite community where more than 100 girls and women were drugged unconscious and raped in the night by what they were told were "ghosts" or "demons." Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events. It takes place over 48 hours, as eight women hide in a hayloft while the men are in a nearby town posting bail for the perpetrators. They have come together to debate, on behalf of all the women and children in the community, whether to stay or leave before the men return. Taking minutes is the one man invited by the women to witness the conversation--a former outcast whose own surprising story is revealed as the women talk. By turns poignant, furious, witty, acerbic, tender, devastating, and heartbreaking, the voices in this extraordinary novel are unforgettable."--

2023-10-09