Women Talking

By: Miriam Toews

Narrated by: Matthew Edison

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A transformative and necessary work - as completely unexpected as it is inspired - by the award-winning author of the best-selling novels All My Puny Sorrows and A Complicated Kindness.

Based on actual events that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite community where more than 100 girls and women were drugged unconscious and assaulted in the night by what they were told (by the men of the colony) were "ghosts" or "demons", Miriam Toews' bold and affecting novel Women Talking is an imagined response to these real events.

The novel takes place over 48 hours as eight women gather in secret in a neighbor's barn while the men are in a nearby town posting bail for the attackers. They have come together to debate, on behalf of all the women and children in the community, whether to stay or leave before the men return. Taking minutes is the one man trusted and invited by the women to witness the conversation - a former outcast whose own surprising story is revealed as the women speak.

By turns poignant, witty, acerbic, bitter, tender, devastating, and heartbreaking, the voices in this extraordinary novel are unforgettable. Toews has chosen to focus the novel tightly on a particular time and place, and yet it contains within its 48 hours and setting inside a hayloft an entire vast universe of thinking and feeling about the experience of women (and therefore men, too) in our contemporary world. In a word: astonishing.

©2018 Miriam Toews (P)2018 Penguin Random House Canada Ltd.

almost couldn't finish

The story is important to tell but there just wasn't a lot of perspective.

Extraordinary

Beauty
Soul and mind
To think
To love
To keep our children safe
Prayerful powerful

Wow!

Powerful story and message. A must “read” for sure. It left me wanting to know more about the real story behind the book.

Stunningly Beautiful

I couldn’t stop listening, the narration and the story swept me up, engrossing me in the women’s philosophical debates, slowly revealed hardships and August’s deep love.

Very thought provoking

At first, I was shocked, a man was reading the book. It seemed like a bad choice. I slowly understood. This story of women taking care of their children is very powerful. I definitely recommend.

Brilliant!

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this story but I was instantly intrigued with the premise. I’ve always loved stories that feature heavy dialog on heavy topics. Think (movie wise) My dinner with Andre or Mindwalk. So this novel of women discussing the tragic events of their abuse, the dismissal of their concerns and what they plan to do about it seemed right up my alley. And it was! But it was so much more. It was sad and it was hopeful. It was dark and it was beautiful. It was more than just women talking. It was women aggressively living in an unkind world. Women choosing their own fate. Soft women holding hard resentments and hard women being softly compassionate. I will carry this story with me for a long time.

Amazing book!❤️

Amazing story. Little known facts expressively told! Book was fantastic beautifully written! Performance so perfectly told!

I had higher expectations

The book sounded more interesting than it was. Although interesting at times it didn’t excite me to want to continue listening…

Thought provoking

This story is interesting and thought provoking if the women who debate and finally decide their future. I’m going to try to process it.

Brilliant in its simplicity and its depth

'To protect our children, to live our faith, to think.' Those are the reasons for leaving the only home the women of this fictionalized Mennonite community decide upon after they and their children are subjected to horrific acts of violence - and asked to forgive and forget by their truly monstrous male leader. This 'manifesto' for the right to be human and female may sounds simple - and the discussions the women have to reach these decisions may seem simple - but the currents of philosophy, psychology, common sense evoked by the discussions of these illiterate (but wise) women are anything but.
I devoured this book in almost one 'listen' - and I likely will listen again. The prose is masterful, the characters beautifully drawn (though the whole book takes place in 48 hours). The narrator is male, but that fact is so important to the telling: the world of women, the 'talk' of women, may be different from the ways of 'men' but our communication is rather key to the survival of the species. And this narrator/character is so very crucial to the tale that is told.