Fight Night: A Novel

"Miriam Toews’ fiction has long mined the central traumas of her life – her father’s and sister’s depression and their suicides, and her childhood in a repressive Mennonite community. Fight Night adds tenderness by parsing these events from the perspective of a 9-year-old, Swiv, who has been suspended from school for fighting. Written as a letter to her missing father, Fight Night tracks Swiv’s new education. Her teacher is her grandmother Elvira, an effervescent woman with a chronic heart condition. This study of trudging forward after calamity teems with absurdity and reminds us that staying alive, despite it all, can be its own revenge and reward."