A TRUCE THAT IS NOT PEACE - Miriam Toews

4.5 stars

Morbid, hilarious, somber, reflective, startling, honey-slow, non-linear, erudite, and irreverently reverent of all things human: what a singular nonfiction memoir. Not for the faint of heart (or is it?)

A Truce That is Not Peace takes its title from a piece of writing by the American poet Christian Winman. The full quote is long, but the soundbite worth mentioning is as follows:

"...wherein we might remember the dead without being haunted by them, give to our lives a coherence that is not ‘closure,’ and learn to live with our memories, our families, and ourselves amid a truce that is not peace.”

This is my second Miriam Toews reading experience, and frankly it has cemented her as one of my favorite authors.

I started this review off with a lot of terms and contradictory phrases because this is doing a lot—and, in a rare happy turn of events, doing all of it well.

It's equal parts a nonlinear reflection on writing as a vocation, a grief process, a suicidal musing, a sister's endless quake into the void, and a violent joie de vivre. The story's core is Toews grappling with the foundational losses of both her father and sister to suicide. How do you fathom the unthinkable? How do you reckon with yourself when the "unthinkable" is actually all-too-thinkable? What's next, after your world ends?

I'm blessed: I've never traveled these waters myself. My sister is alive and well, albeit on her own mental health journey. I myself never get anywhere near the "big sad," as my family calls it. Suicide has never crossed my mind. (These are deep blessings, I know, and I don't mean to trivialize or alienate those who resonate with the topics differently than I do.)

Being on my side of the mental fence, I found A Truce That Is Not Peace to be singularly poignant and educational from a perspective I've not experienced. It was brutal yet kind in its telling. I felt both witness and voyeur. It was, in essence, a thing of sharp-edged life that knew it was hurting itself and you in order to share its message.

My only critique—how does one critique a topic such as this—is that I do wonder at the latter section. Did I miss the point? Possibly, I'll own that flaw. I found the Wolfie/European journey letters-to-Marj bulk at the end to be an odd diversion from the form—the majority of the work is small, non-linear vignettes interspersed with quotations—and also overly weighted in length compared to the rest.

Review Note: If you've not gathered this yet, this work is Heavy. Please proceed with caution if you avoid topics of familial death, suicide, ideation, depression, etc.