A story more common than we wish

“A critically acclaimed bestseller written by my namesake and it’s about Mennonites – I should read this book.” Thus began my journey into Miram Toews’s book, A Complicated Kindness (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

It is an understatement to say this is not a light read. This is the heart-rending tale of 16-year-old Nomi Nickel, living in my father’s homeland – Mennonite Manitoba. As her family disintegrates before her eyes, Nomi goes on a Kafkaesque search for answers. “We’re Mennonites. As far as I know, we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager.” And from that beginning, things get worse.

With only the faintest shades of redemption, A Complicated Kindness follows in the lineage of Canadian [and Mennonite] novels preoccupied with tormented souls. I don’t read much modern fiction any more and were it not for the aforementioned reasons this book would have been abandoned after 30 pages. But not only did I keep reading, I have kept thinking about the book and recommend it to thoughtful readers.

So if you are not into hell on earth, why should you bother with this book? Because it tells a story we in Christian communities find very painful but one that takes place all around us every day. It is the story of what it feels like to be outside when you are born inside and when things you can’t control have gone terribly wrong. It is not a pretty picture and, while the details are never the same, there is a pattern to the pain.

I grew up in Abbotsford, never spoke Low German, but remember the days when we sat in the back of the church on Sunday morning in the bittersweet afterglow of Saturday night. “[T]hat’s the thing about this town – there’s no room for in between. You’re in or you’re out. You’re good or you’re bad. Actually, very good or very bad. Or very good at being very bad without being detected.” When this dissonance is mixed with family tragedy it produces a lethal cocktail. I recognize Nomi’s lonely despair among those who were my friends in the back rows of the church.

A Complicated Kindness is not everyone’s story but it is a far more common story than we wish. It is told in the jarring language of teenage angst. It is not what we want to hear from the mouths of our children but it is the story of ideals becoming destructive. This time poor old Menno Simons takes the brunt of the vitriol. For some readers there may be a temptation to write off Toews’ indictment as applying to an exotic community from another time and another place. This would be a mistake. The setting is specific and profoundly embarrassing to some of us, but no idealistic community will escape this story’s casualties.

Those of us committed to healthy community had best be aware of community’s dark shadows. Miriam Toews gives us one such portrait we should not ignore.

James Toews is pastor of Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.