Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote religious Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and raped, often repeatedly, by what many thought were ghosts or demons, as a punishment for their sins. As the women tentatively began to share the details of the attacks - waking up sore and bleeding and not understanding why - their stories were chalked up to 'wild female imagination.' 'Women Talking' is an imagined response to these real events. Eight women, all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their colony and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in, meet secretly in a hayloft with the intention of making a decision about how to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.
Note: Originally published: Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2014 Yoli is conflicted. Her sister Elf has battled depression for her whole adult life, and is in a psychiatric ward under permanent observation after attempting suicide - again. She has always looked up to her as her talented and beautiful older sister. She loves her with a fierce passion and wants to believe in the possibility of a future together, one in which Elf gets better. But it's looking unlikely and Yoli has to decide if the person you love is tired of living, is it kinder just to let them go?
Note: Originally published: 2004 16-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City's East Village. Instead she's trapped in East Village, Manitoba: a town with no train station, no bar, and where job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir. Since her mother and sister have left home, Nomi lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher. Fighting against the restraints of the town, Nomi's longing for a future of opportunity and hope sets her on course towards a climax at once startling and inevitable.
Note: Originally published: Canada: Vintage, 1998 Hosea Funk is mayor of Algren, likely to win the prize of Canada's smallest town. The award will be presented by the Prime Minister, a man who Hosea believes to be his biological father. If he can keep the town's population below 1500 they will finally be reunited.
Note: Originally published: Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 2000 One morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and popular schoolteacher, he was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggle, he could no longer face the darkness of manic depression. With razor-sharp precision, 'Swing Low' takes us deep inside the experience of despair but is also a funny, winsome evocation of country life.