When Miriam Toews' father was 17 years old he learned that he had bipolar disorder. Following the diagnosis from his psychiatrist, he rejected conventional medical advice of the 1950s. Instead, he dove into life, determined to become a "better human being."
Her father recalls meeting with his psychiatrist: "He told me that those who suffer from manic depression have a lot of difficulty making marriages or any long-term relationship work, and when I told him that I was ... planning on being a schoolteacher, he almost hit the roof," she writes.
Toews, an award-winning Canadian author ("The Flying Troutmans") displays her talent as a fiction writer in this uniquely structured memoir/biography.
Toggling between what she imagines as her father's memories and his situation as a patient in the local hospital following a breakdown near the end of his life, Toews chronicles his painful, yet at times happy life. He married, raised a family and successfully taught school for 40 years. Raised within the conservative Mennonite religion, he never admitted to his illness. Instead, he assumed his depression was a flaw born out of his weak character. When finally he took his own life, he felt he had accomplished little of consequence.
This humane rendering of her father's life re-creates the flip side of the story. "His managing to live an ordinary life was an extraordinary accomplishment. It was a measure of his strength, his high (some would say impossibly high) personal standards, and his extreme self-discipline that he managed to stay sane, organized, and ordinary for so long."
