What readers think of A Truce That Is Not Peace, plus links to write your own review.

I love Miriam Toews and have read almost all her novels (All My Puny Sorrows, Fight Night, Women Talking and Irma Voth are my favorites). Almost all of her novels are about the same thing -- how to survive the pain of losing her sister and her father to suicide, dark humor being a huge part of this. Her memoir is, of course, no exception. Here we learn a few more details of what really happened -- but the point of the book is to answer the question "Why do I write?" The book is framed by an attempt to submit a piece to a conference in Mexico City to which she has been invited along with five other writers, answering this question. Each chapter begins with another rejection by the conference heads of her previous attempt. The memoir is disjointed, and, like all of her work, full of dark hilarity, which to me feels like the best way to wrestle with one's life. (As a child, Miriam once announced that she wanted to grow up to be a clown) Recurring images populate the chapter, moments she keeps coming back to again and again to try to explain why she is. And though the book provides no clear cut answer to the question of the conference, "Why do I write?" the impression I receive is that Miriam writes simply to survive.