Review of THE FLYING TROUTMANS by Miriam Toews

3.5 Stars

I’ve enjoyed several of Toews’ novels, especially All My Puny Sorrows and Women Talking.  Somehow I missed The Flying Troutmans which was published ten years ago and won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, so I thought I’d check it out. 

Hattie Troutman returns to Manitoba to look after her 15-year-old nephew Logan and 11-year-old niece Thebes when their mother, Hattie’s older sister Min, has a psychotic break and is hospitalized.  Fearing that the children will be placed in foster care, Hattie impulsively sets off with the children on a road trip into the U.S. to find their father Cherkis whom Min chased away several years ago.  As is typical in road trip novels, they meet their share of quirky characters.  Hattie also learns about her two charges and herself, and because of her reminiscences, the reader learns about the relationship between Hattie and Min.

It is Logan and Thebes who steal the show.  Logan is a silent and moody teenager who shoots hoops to relieve stress and carves his thoughts into the dashboard of the van.  Thebes is a non-stop talker with purple hair and fake tattoos.  She never bathes and wears the same clothes every day.  Her obsession is making giant novelty cheques for people.  They are insightful and precocious, having had to grow up quickly because they’ve been the ones to look after their mother during her struggles with mental illness.  Though they are certainly odd, they are also vulnerable.  Though the siblings annoy each other, there is true affection between them, and there is no doubt that they love their mother. 

Hattie is 28 but seems very immature.  She has less insight into herself than the children have into themselves.  Thebes knows that she’s “on thin ice in the social hierarchy department . . . not exactly a popular girl” (37), and Logan acknowledges that he feels very angry at Min’s illness and his father’s abandonment.  Hattie, meanwhile, can’t figure out how she feels about her ex-boyfriend.  She behaves impulsively, the road trip being the best example, and seems to have no idea about how to care for her nephew and niece.  She never encourages Thebes to take a bath, and Thebes has to tell her to talk to Logan and how to approach him:  “You should have a talk with him, said Thebes.  I don’t know what to say, I said.  Well, she said, you could just start out with talking about how you felt when you were fifteen” (123).  Hattie even lets Logan drive, though he doesn’t have a license. 

Hattie’s way of coping has been to run away.  Because she couldn’t deal with Min’s illness, she “moved to Paris, fled Min’s dark planet for the City of Lights” (8).  The road trip is just another way to escape:  “Anyway I didn’t want to be here.  I didn’t know how to talk to the kids.  I loved them, but I didn’t want to live with my sister” (27).  Logan has more sense of responsibility than she does; he feels an obligation to look after his mother and sister.  At one point he asks, “But who would just do that . . . Like, just leave.  You know?  Like, just disappear” (127).  Hattie’s decision at the end does suggest a change.

A central question in the novel is how to help someone who only wants to be helped to die.  Several characters suggest that love is the answer:  “we were always meant to be moving in a love direction, always” (205).  Logan suggests an answer when he discusses how he shoots hoops, always believing the ball will go into the basket, even after several have not:  “I’m always sure the next one will go in” (242). 

This book is not Toews’ best.  The plot is predictable and the humour often seems contrived.  Some suspension of disbelief is required because some of the characters are unrealistic.  The ending also seems too convenient.  Nonetheless, it is worth reading.  I think it foreshadows All My Puny Sorrows which also addresses mental illness and was written after the suicide of Toews’ only sibling.