Women Talking

By: Miriam Toews

Narrated by: Matthew Edison

A transformative and necessary work - as completely unexpected as it is inspired - by the award-winning author of the best-selling novels All My Puny Sorrows and A Complicated Kindness.

Based on actual events that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite community where more than 100 girls and women were drugged unconscious and assaulted in the night by what they were told (by the men of the colony) were "ghosts" or "demons", Miriam Toews' bold and affecting novel Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events.

The novel takes place over 48 hours as eight women gather in secret in a neighbor's barn while the men are in a nearby town posting bail for the attackers. 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 trusted and invited by the women to witness the conversation - a former outcast whose own surprising story is revealed as the women speak.

By turns poignant, witty, acerbic, bitter, tender, devastating, and heartbreaking, the voices in this extraordinary novel are unforgettable. Toews has chosen to focus the novel tightly on a particular time and place, and yet it contains within its 48 hours and setting inside a hayloft an entire vast universe of thinking and feeling about the experience of women (and therefore men, too) in our contemporary world. In a word: astonishing.

©2018 Miriam Toews (P)2018 Penguin Random House Canada Ltd.

I had higher expectations

The book sounded more interesting than it was. Although interesting at times it didn’t excite me to want to continue listening…

Thought provoking

This story is interesting and thought provoking if the women who debate and finally decide their future. I’m going to try to process it.

Brilliant in its simplicity and its depth

'To protect our children, to live our faith, to think.' Those are the reasons for leaving the only home the women of this fictionalized Mennonite community decide upon after they and their children are subjected to horrific acts of violence - and asked to forgive and forget by their truly monstrous male leader. This 'manifesto' for the right to be human and female may sounds simple - and the discussions the women have to reach these decisions may seem simple - but the currents of philosophy, psychology, common sense evoked by the discussions of these illiterate (but wise) women are anything but.
I devoured this book in almost one 'listen' - and I likely will listen again. The prose is masterful, the characters beautifully drawn (though the whole book takes place in 48 hours). The narrator is male, but that fact is so important to the telling: the world of women, the 'talk' of women, may be different from the ways of 'men' but our communication is rather key to the survival of the species. And this narrator/character is so very crucial to the tale that is told.

WONDERFUL!

Such a tender and honest way to discuss a difficult and timeless of violence.

Perspective

I found the male narrator frustrating at times but this story was told in the reality that these women lived in. There was a lot unspoken. Perhaps they didn’t have the language to address all that they’d been through. It was still recent. They focus on taking action of protest. Given their beliefs and the rigid reality of the culture and and the way they have been taught to think about themselves, this ongoing conversation is a revolutionary act. They demand to be, They recognize their own ability and right to determine their own paths in life in a way that works within their core values and at the same time identifying the weaknesses of their system of living. Through this all they do not lose their faith, but use their faith to guide them pathway out of victimhood.

If you love story about women empowering themselves!

I love this story, this narrator, these characters! I love learning and reading about strong female leaders, creating change in their lives. Beautiful!

Stunning and Compelling

Amazing and imaginative exploration of Mennonite women in relationship to each other and to their - often abusive - community and to their faith

Trying to wrap my head around this

This was an awesome account of life in this world. I say this because Women Talking takes the reader away from what we take as commonplace and casts light on a different bu
sad and tragic world view. At the same time, how these women continue in their faith with a mature yet eerily childlike resignation. The courage to leave is in itself astounding and casts hope for a better tomorrow.

Is it truly different today?

At first I wondered why is a male narrating this story, and then we learn he in essence is neutered and hence viewed as less than …. as the women and children are.
This story of Mennonite culture is representative of many ‘religious societies or closed sects’ of the current time. It’s not an old story it’s contemporary. It is also a rather fair representation of family systems in which incest and domestic abuse exists and in fact thrives globally from East to West. The proliferation of human trafficking further demonstrates how, even without a religious frame, women and children are considered less then. As a women born in 1950 I lived through a childhood of abuse. As an adolescent I too thought about many of the concerns the women articulated in this book. The choice to leave, knowing I would be leaving younger siblings behind, and the anger and hurt from the lack of maternal protection torn at me. My belief or what some refer to as faith was not dictated by organization religion but rather by the dignity of self. As a girl becoming a woman I deserved human dignity and the respect of being. This is an important book. A book for all to read.

Stunningly Beautiful

I couldn’t stop listening, the narration and the story swept me up, engrossing me in the women’s philosophical debates, slowly revealed hardships and August’s deep love.