At The Unger Review, we’re huge fans of the brilliant novelist Miriam Toews. Her insightful, important, and, at times, hilarious novels have had a great impact on my writing.
Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Miriam’s novel is playing in Miriam’s hometown of Steinbach this coming week! It’s also playing everywhere else, too, I’m sure. And, of course, we’re rooting for it at the Oscars on March 12!
When looking through the archives, I found I’d actually written a handful of articles about Miriam over the years. Here’s a selection of the best ones, with a few comments by author Andrew Unger.
(Click on the links to read the articles in full).
- Warhol’s ‘Miriam’ Shatters Record, Sells for $195 Million. This was a spoof on the auction of a ‘Marilyn’ painting. Check out the photo. It looks pretty real.
- Mennonite Novelist Irma Voth Pens New Novel Called ‘Miriam Toews’ The idea for this came when I saw Irma Voth sitting on my desk and thought, ‘I wonder if anyone ever gets this mixed up?’ I guess it’s the same person who’s currently reading Charles Dickens by David Copperfield.
- Steinbach Man Plans to Review New Miriam Toews Book Without Even Having Read It This was written when Fight Night came out and, as with every new Toews novel, there are these cranky people out there who just can’t handle it. I honestly hear mostly nice things about Miriam but, on occasion, when people are angry, it’s almost always the case that they haven’t read her books. It’s pretty predictable.
- Mennonite Critics Excited to Watch ‘Women Talking’ and Find All the “Errors” In a similar vein, this article speaks to a particular Mennonite penchant to get sidetracked by unimportant issues. That’s putting it politely.
- Massive Miriam Toews Statue to Be Erected in Steinbach . This article, which has been updated and included in The Best of the Bonnet, appeared in the very first week of The Daily Bonnet back in 2016. Not long after that a Miriam Toews fan from Quebec emailed me and let me know that she had been inquiring with the official Manitoba tourism office regarding Miriam Toews and Steinbach. She wanted to know if there was anything Miriam-related she could visit in Steinbach. The tourism office told her that, no, unfortunately there wasn’t … but that a massive statue was in the works. True story. In all seriousness, I do think it’s beyond time that Steinbach officially publicly honoured and recognized Miriam in some way. I’m optimistic it will happen.
Next week: Top 5 Vic Toews articles! (Just kidding).