Women Talking

I don’t know how this book got published.

A fictitious account of actual events, a dark and disturbing subject with a plethora of 4 & 5 star reviews. What could go wrong? Well, in the case of this book, everything.

The entire book is spelled out in the description. Eight Mennonite women discover that themselves, along with 100+ other women and children in their community, have been drugged and raped by the community men over the course of two years.

These eight women gather secretly to discuss what they are going to do now that the truth has come to light. They have three choices: stay and do nothing, stay and fight or leave.
What follows is that secret conversation as told by the meeting minutes taken by August Epp. Although he is a man, August is the only person they can trust that can read and write.

The entire book is made up of one conversation, or I should say the minutes of one conversation. This leaves the style of the story less than savory. Long ramblings of what is, in my experience, not consistent with the usual format when taking minutes. August also includes his personal thoughts which is counterintuitive as well as distracting.

The women have unusual names and all seem to be related in some way or another leaving it nearly impossible to decipher who is who for most of the story. The same three choices are pondered over and over with little progress towards a decision until the very end. I felt like I read the same conversation 100 times.

Religion is prevalent in everything these women discuss as they try to figure out how to save themselves without falling out of God’s grace. I would dare say that 3/4 of this story revolves around religion and that alone is enough to turn me off from this book.

While the real life account of what happened to these women is compelling, the author ruined any chance for the reader to connect and become invested in their plight with an unbearable format and lackluster character development.

Now for the positive: it is a very short book.

If I had to choose an audience for this book it would be a Christian women’s church book club.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued when I read about the back story of the soon to be released Women Talking, so I pre-ordered it. As is the case in books which I order prior to their release, I try to read them ASAP and in this case was immediately after reading Educated. Both are examinations of the abuse of power in extreme patriarchal societies.

In the case of Women Talking it is based on a true account of Mennonite women in Bolivia who were first thought to be “ghost raped” but in actuality were sedated by bovine anesthetic and raped. This involved over 300 females, from children to elderly.

When Miriam Toews heard of this she wanted to write a novel about this. She creates a novel using minutes of a meeting in which the women discuss what they should do, while the men of the colony are providing bail for the perpetrators. As they see it they have three choices, to stay and do nothing, to stay and fight back or to leave.

As one might imagine, minutes of a meeting doesn’t drive a book at a fast pace, but it does provide compelling insights:

“Ona protests, quietly, that she doesnt believe that at all. She doesnt believe in authority, period, because authority makes people cruel. Salome interrupts: The people with authority or the people without? Mariche ignores Salome. How on earth can you not believe in authority? she asks Ona. How on earth can you believe in authority? says Ona.”

The women in this society have been kept in ignorance, it is only the men who read and only the men who journey to the outside world. The writing is insightful and filled with philosophy. Here is a bit about the possibility of acquiring a world map:

Salome asks whether there might also be, in the Chortiza colony, a map of this specific region? It would be best, she wisely points out, if we were to have a very detailed map that included highways, minor roads, rivers and rail tracks, for instance. If such a map exists. True, says Mariche. We arent planning to traverse the planet. Perhaps we are, counters Ona. She adds an interesting fact. Did you know, she says, that the migration period of butterflies and dragonflies is so long that it is often only the grandchildren who arrive at the intended destination?

I was really torn about the rating of this book, because I could envision a book about these women moving at a faster more compelling pace with perhaps more enjoyable reading. I then realized that the pace was intentional and the women had some very serious considerations which called for the deliberately slow pace.

I don’t believe this is a book for everyone but if this review caught your attention, perhaps it is for you.

This is a fictionalized account of a real-life occurrence.
“Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote religious Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and raped, often repeatedly, by what many thought were ghosts or demons, as a punishment for their sins.” As it turned out, 8 men from the colony were responsible for these attacks, and they were arrested and sent to prison for their crimes. But some of the girls that attacked were as young as three, and, as can be imagined, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and PTSD were rampant. This book tells us how 8 fictional women meet together in a hayloft, and how they plan to protect themselves and their children by leaving the colony. The book is written as minutes of the meetings that were held in that hayloft. None of the 8 women could read, so they recruited a man to do the recording for them. The book unfolds as August Epp, who is a teacher in the colony, begins to fully understand what these women have been putting up with for many years. It’s a story of survival and a story of women taking back their power over their own destinies. It’s a difficult book to read, but it’s an affirmation of the strength of women and also a testimonial to their determination to do whatever it takes to save their children and grandchildren. Miriam Toews does a masterful job of putting this down in writing, and with her stark prose, and her wonderful grasp of getting to the main issue, this book is a must-read for women today. The “me-too” society has brought all this to the forefront these days, so the book is timely and appropriate.

I am still working out what I feel about this one. I’m glad I read it, but did get a mixture of feeling overwhelmed and – I need to admit – sometimes too much, too horrendous for me to cope with. I did feel this was real, and authentic, which is very important for me, and I liked and appreciated that this was seen through the eyes of the male narrator, i felt that was a necessary distance that enabled me to keep reading. I did hear it, and relate strongly to it, and am grateful at the way it was structured, as it did an amazing job of communicating realities which otherwise I would not have been able to access. I did feel it got a bit repetitive at the end, and less authentic, and I came out of the book at the conclusion. and lost some of my belief (and indeed when I researched the real story, this was not what happened, and although I can appreciate that this contrast to reality was intentional from the author I was just a bit less engaged). But I am very glad I read it, and when I have recovered hope to read it again, as it feels like an important work.

I am glad I read this book as it is an important and shocking story, based on real events, which I would not have otherwise known about.

However I was not keen on how it was structured and presented. Written as minutes from a series of meetings between the women of the community where they are deciding whether to stay or leave for a new life together, the discussions were often repetitive and seemed to ignore a lot of the bigger issues raised by this hideous crime.

I was hoping for a broader story which covered the period of time these crimes were being committed, and the mindset of the community at that time, rather than being limited to the dialogue from these meetings.

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