Canadian author Miriam Toews has released a new memoir, A Truce That Is Not Peace, which tackles themes of loss, suicide, and the act of writing itself. The book, described as a fragmented account of her life, delves into the silence that surrounded her sister Marjorie's suicide in 2010, twelve years after their father Melvin took his own life.
Toews, known for her autofictional works including All My Puny Sorrows and Swing Low, this time writes without disguise. The memoir originated from letters she sent to her sister while travelling in Europe as a teenager, which she identifies as the reason she became a writer. A planned appearance at a literary conference in Mexico City was cancelled when organisers deemed this answer insufficient.
The book interweaves her chaotic home life in Toronto—dealing with a deranged skunk, a former partner still claiming royalties, and a desire to create a museum for winds—with reflections on her sister's prolonged silence before her death. Toews questions whether her writing is any more meaningful than that silence, noting she once threw her mobile phone into a river instead of herself.
The letters from 1982, included in a 30-page section, recount her travels with boyfriend Wolfie, from Covent Garden busking to losing bikes in Rouen. Despite the personal tragedy, the narrative is marked by dark humour and a meditation on why she writes: 'Because she asked me to. You live. And I’ll write.'
