What is interesting in her depiction of her situation, however, is not simply her resentment. A Complicated Kindness is just that: funny and strange, spellbinding and heartbreaking, this novel is a complicated kindness from a terrifically talented. Dominated by a clannish enclave whose ethnicity is comprised of Northern Europeans of Germanic descent and whose avoidance of the worldly and the modern is an increasingly difficult-to-sustain article of faith, Nomi's reactions to her town move from witty sarcasm to anger to deep despair. With an economy based on a kitschy, mock, pre-industrial village patronized by American tourists and by rules that decree no dancing, no drinking, no rock music, and no swimming, jewelry, or staying up past nine o'clock, there is little on offer for a spirited teenage girl such as the redoubtable Nomi. Nomis angst, questions, and profound grief are rendered in a way that captures the spirit of adolescence without being dated or. Drawn from Miriam Toews' own upbringing in the Mennonite town of Steinbach, Manitoba, this "other" East Village is subjected to relentless irreverence by her rebellious teenage narrator Nomi Nickel. While the teen heroine of Miriam Toews' prize-winning novel yearns to live in New York City's East Village, imagining herself and her entire Mennonite family magically employed as Lou Reed's devoted roadies, in reality the East Village location of this novel is an arch-conservative religious community living in a semi-bunkered state of siege in Manitoba.
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