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All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – October 15, 2019

by Miriam Toews (Author)

4.1 3,734 ratings

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From the bestselling author of Women Talking, a "wrenchingly honest, darkly funny novel" (Entertainment Weekly).

Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's life is enviable (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close-raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf's desire to end her life. After Elf's latest attempt, Yoli must quickly determine how to keep her family from falling apart while facing a profound question: what do you do for a loved one who truly wants to die?

All My Puny Sorrows is a deeply personal story that is as much comedy as it is tragedy, a goodbye grin from the friend who taught you how to live.

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Editorial Reviews

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“Irresistible… its intelligence, its honesty and, above all, its compassion provide a kind of existential balm-a comfort not unlike the sort you might find by opening a bottle of wine and having a long conversation with (yes, really) a true friend.” ―Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review

“In the crucible of [Miriam Toews'] genius, tears and laughter are ground into some magical elixir that seems like the essence of life.” ―Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“[A] wrenchingly honest, darkly funny novel. (Grade: A)” ―Entertainment Weekly

“Bold, brash and big-hearted.... Toews writes from the point of view of Yoli, whose interior monologue reads like a cross between David Foster Wallace and Robin Williams if both were, in fact, a 40-something Mennonite woman with authority issues. She's a smart aleck with heart, a philosopher with a comic's timing.” ―The Dallas Morning News

“Toews (Irma Voth) does a wonderful job with her characters, none of whom are perfect, which makes them all the more real. It requires a talented author to take a serious subject and write such an engaging, enjoyable work.” ―Library Journal (starred)

“Touching and unexpectedly humorous.” ―Marie Claire

“The novel, which is essentially about complex family relationships, is heartbreaking and ultimately forgiving, as Yolandi wonders what courage is needed to end a life versus the courage it takes to endure. You'll want to call your sister or your mom after finishing.” ―Bustle

“[A] sad, wise, often funny and very good novel.” ―Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“'All My Puny Sorrows' is a bittersweet story about those who survive and those who can't fight the current.” ―Minneapolis StarTribune

“[A] triumph in its depiction of the love the sisters share.” ―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“[A] masterful, original investigation into love, loss and survival.” ―Kirkus (Starred Review)

“All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: The premise of Toews's sixth novel, released to critical acclaim in Canada earlier this year, is simple and devastating: there are two adult sisters, and one of them wants to die. She's a wildly successful and in-demand concert pianist, but she longs for self-annihilation. It's a premise that could easily be grindingly unbearable, but Toews is a writer of considerable subtlety and grace, with a gift for bringing flashes of lightness, even humor, to the darkest of tales.” ―The Millions

“Funny and irresistibly warm” ―Isaac Fitzgerald, BuzzFeed

“A harrowing and often very funny novel ... Every page yields a surprise, a laugh, or a line that will make your breath catch in your throat.” ―Dan Kois, Slate

“As jagged and ripped open as a freshly torn heart.” ―The Boston Globe

“Thanks to the prodigious talent of author Miriam Toews, "All My Puny Sorrows" is an off-kilter, frequently funny and begrudgingly life-affirming romp through, well, death…. a novel with such wincingly painful honesty and mordant humor.” ―Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Miriam Toews is the author of the bestselling novels All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, Irma Voth, Fight Night, and one work of nonfiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing; First Edition (October 15, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1635574978
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1635574975
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #576,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,437 in Amish & Mennonite Fiction (Books)
- #9,251 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- #28,505 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.1 3,734 ratings

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Miriam Toews

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Miriam Toews was born and raised in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada, the second daughter of Mennonite parents and a direct descendant of one of Steinbach's first settlers, Klaas R. Reimer, who arrived in Manitoba in 1874 from the Ukraine. Her best-selling novels, which include Fight Night, Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, and A Complicated Kindness, have won numerous literary awards: the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. She is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Toews had a leading role in the feature film, Silent Light, written and directed by Carlos Reygadas, and winner of the 2007 Cannes Jury Prize, an experience that informed her fifth novel, Irma Voth.

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3,734 global ratings

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Catherine Fortney

Spot On!

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2023

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A truly moving tale on the difficult topic of suicide. It touches on both sides of the argument -- do you have a basic human right to choose the time, place and manner of your demise, or does the rest of the world have a right and obligation to stop you from actually doing it? It asks the question, "Is suicide a selfish act or a selfless act?" This book is extremely well-written, and recommended by a friend who definitely knows the perfect book when you need it. "The right book at the right time," he says. This is a great book for someone who has been there and tried and failed, as it perfectly describes the hellish aftermath following a failed attempt. The sadness and ugliness of it all. It's also a truly great book for someone who has lost someone. You will finally understand their desperation to find peace. You will leave it knowing that it was never about anyone other than them and what they wanted more than anything in the world. It helps you to understand that it's not something you ever could have prevented. It's a story about wanting something so bad, you would do anything to get it. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, a truly is a heartwarming story that I highly recommend. I am so glad I bought this book - it helped me understand. It is definitely on my "reread" list, probably many times over.

One person found this helpful

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Larry Hoffer

Harrowing and emotional but beautifully written...

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2014

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So if you're thinking a book called All My Puny Sorrows is going to be a bit of a downer, you're definitely right, but the talent of Miriam Toews is definitely something to behold despite the harrowing nature of the book.

Elf (Elfrieda) and Yoli (Yolandi) are sisters and best friends. Growing up in a Mennonite community outside of Winnipeg, they were tremendously close as they united against the way the community's elders treated women and tried to marginalize Elf's talent playing the piano. They also tried to understand the mood swings of their father, a gentle man who felt desperately passionate about so many things.

As adults, on the surface Elf leads a glamorous life—she has a devoted husband and a successful career as a renowned concert pianist, while Yoli has been divorced twice and is struggling to cope with raising her two children as they approach adulthood, as well as financial, romantic, and career difficulties. Yet Elf suffers from a crushing depression and desperately wants to end her life, although her attempts have all ended in failure.

"It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other."

What Yoli wants is for Elf to finally get the treatment she so desperately needs, so she can finally enjoy her life and once again be the passionate, highly intelligent person Yoli knows and loves. And more than that, Yoli really wants her confidante again, wants someone to help guide her out of the mess that she is making with her life and help her regain the confidence she needs to move her writing career in a different direction. But despite the love of her husband, her family, and her fans, all Elf really wants is to die, so her suffering can end.

As hard as Yoli fights to change Elf's mind about dying, Elf fights just as hard to convince Yoli to help her end her life. How do you convince someone you love that their life is worth living when they are unable to see that for themselves? Is it our responsibility to help those we care about end their suffering?

I've never read anything by Miriam Toews before, but I was truly wowed by her ability to inhabit these characters. This is an incredibly moving book about the toll depression and suicide have not only on the person struggling, but on those who care about them. It's also a story about finding the strength to carry on when it feels like you have nothing left, and everything seems to be going against you.

This is a hard book to read because of the emotional nature of the subject matter and the suffering that the characters endure (and I've only scratched the surface in my description), but Toews' prose is so lyrical, almost poetic at times, and it truly immerses you in the story. At times it got a bit difficult because the hits kept on coming, and it was hard to watch Yoli make such a mess of her own life at the same time, but the beauty and power of Toews' writing compels you to soldier on.

22 people found this helpful

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Jaylia

Poignantly beautiful story of two sisters

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2015

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I always fall hard for the novels Miriam Toews writes and the characters she creates. A best selling author in Canada, most of her books involve individualistically inclined or exiled Mennonites balancing their traditional upbringing with the modern world in distinctive stories of personal struggle and family connection. The details about Mennonite culture and its fringes give the stories added interest and a strong sense of place, but it’s the characters that really set her novels apart.

In All My Puny Sorrows one sister has it all. Elfrieda Von Riese has always been eccentric, passionate, talented and intense--a dances to her own drummer Mennonite--and now as an adult she’s a wealthy, beloved, beautiful, world acclaimed pianist in a wonderfully loving marriage, but in spite of all that goodness Elf is determined to kill herself, somehow never having developed a tolerance for living in the world. Her sister Yolandi, in contrast, is a twice divorced now single mother, drifting in and out of relationships and perennially broke, who desperately wants to keep Elf alive. “She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.”

It’s not a plotline that would normally attract me, and the story is more character than plot anyway, but Toews gives her characters such captivating, heart-piercing voices that I sank deep and only reluctantly put down this thoughtfully nuanced, non-condescending, family celebrating book. The title comes from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

7 people found this helpful

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Jane L Ades

The writing is lovely but....

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2015

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The story is interminable. Elf, the older sister, wants to die and wants Yoli, the younger to help her do it. That's a difficult subject--sad, frightening, awesome--but why? That's the main problem with this book. The characters are so well-drawn--interesting , unique, funny, idiosyncratic --a joy to read and to linger on Toews' words--I was curious to learn more, to follow them down their paths--but I never understood why Elf wanted to die and that was what made the book so difficult to read. Things could have happened in any sort of haphazard way because there wasn't enough of a plot to keep a story moving.
And I suppose that Toews meant this to be an exploration of dying, which would have been fine but not as a story. I couldn't feel connected with the characters all that much which is a shame for such a beautifully written piece of prose.

4 people found this helpful

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Darma Elena

Bello e terribile.

Reviewed in Italy on December 12, 2022

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Splendido libro. Troppo dolore. E grande coraggio. Non credo di poter rileggerlo.
Ma penso che il coraggio di tutti insegni a sopravvivere.

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Di

Brilliant

Reviewed in Germany on May 17, 2018

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Heart wrenching true story brilliantly written, in many places very witty but it puts the reader on a journey to show both sides of mental illness, the anguish of family members and the pain and hopelessness the patient endures.
I loved this book and can highly recommend it.

One person found this helpful

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Patricia Simons

A book to share with the ones closest to you

Reviewed in Canada on May 26, 2014

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"My lifetime ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form…" (Milan Kundera). This is precisely what Miriam Toews has achieved with All My Puny Sorrows. It's sublimely written with crisp, unobtrusive prose while at the same time bursting with big ideas and intertextual allusions and funny jokes. What's truly exceptional about it though is its radiant core of emotion, it practically has a heartbeat. The laughter and tears go straight into your blood stream without you even realizing it. I've rarely felt so inhabited by a book. It's about two women in their 40s, Elfreida, a beautiful, celebrated pianist, and her younger sister Yolandi (the narrator) whose life and career are kind of all over the place. Elfreida is suicidal: "She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other." That's the central tension. Although you sense Yolandi is going to fail in her quest to keep Elfreida alive, there is suspense throughout, and a couple unexpected plot turns. Their feet-on-the-ground mother Lottie is the greatest character ever, a model of courage and love. That's really what the book is about: love. Who to love, how to love, how to keep loving, how to accept the inadequacies of love, how love can support us through the worst. Grief and loss arrive suddenly and inevitably. Toews forces us to think about this (she has had to herself; much of the novel is autobiographical), but she gives us a beautiful example of coming to terms with our essential aloneness.

19 people found this helpful

mimday

A beautifully written, intriguing, enjoyable, thought provoking book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2015

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So, you're sisters, you grow up together. You're close. You share everything. You're honest with each other. You'll do everything you possibly can for each other. And then your sister asks you to help her commit suicide as, continuing living, is so terribly painful. Ah. Now, That's something different. Or is it?

Elf and Yoli are sisters brought up in a Mennonite community although their parents are rather forward thinking. They support Elf with her musical career and she becomes a classical pianist. Yoli is a bit more staid/stable perhaps; relationships, children. They remain amazingly close. Their father commits suicide (that's a very small part of the story, just mentioned) and mum and, her sister and wider family, are also part of the story but the main characters are the sisters.

Elf ends up admitted to hospital, yet again, having tried to take her own life. She's desperate; she can't bare the pain of carrying on living and asks Yoli to help her end her life.

This is a beautifully written book. It's one of those books that I couldn't wait to read the next chapter and yet, now I've made it to the end, I'm sad that it's over.

It makes you laugh, if makes you cry (well, I did anyway) and you feel that you get to know the sisters but also the rest of the family too.

A wonderfully written book and an amazing read. I will have to explore more of Miriam Toews' books.

12 people found this helpful

Lola

Sad and funny

Reviewed in France on April 17, 2015

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This is a sad story but written with a sharp wit. I don't know that I can come to terms as the author did with her sisters suicide but her telling of the story was moving, honest and funny.

One person found this helpful

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All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – October 15, 2019

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