A Complicated Kindness Study Guide

Miriam Toews was born into highly conservative Mennonite community in rural Canada, much like the one her protagonist Nomi inhabits in A Complicated Kindness. At the age of eighteen, Toews left Steinbach to travel the world, working in London and Montreal for several years before moving to Winnipeg and pursuing a Film Studies degree at the University of Manitoba (she later earned a degree in journalism as well). Working on a radio documentary on low-income mothers inspired Toews to write her first novel, Summer of My Amazing Luck, a story of friendship between two young mothers in a Winnipeg housing project. Since then she has written several novels, many based on her family’s departure from the Mennonite community and struggles with mental illness. She lives in Toronto with her partner and mother, and enjoys babysitting her two grandchildren.

Mennonites are members of a Protestant Christian sect, similar to Anabaptism, founded by Menno Simons in 16th-century Holland. Simons’ beliefs included adult baptism (baptizing congregants as adults, rather than infants, so that they can fully understand the ritual) and formally shunning transgressive community members. A relatively small and radical group, Mennonites endured persecution from various repressive governments in Europe. Some Mennonites fled to more tolerant Prussian states, while others pursued freedom in colonial America. Centuries later, many Russian Mennonites (such as Nomi’s ancestors) fled to America after Russia’s Communist Revolution threatened their way of life. Today, Mennonites live and practice their faith in a variety of ways. While some conservative groups live in isolated towns, maintain traditional dress and eschew modern conveniences, others live in mainstream communities and use technology.

Miriam Toews is the author of seven novels, many of which address themes present in A Complicated Kindness, such as family relationships and religious doubt. Swing Low: A Life and All My Puny Sorrows, based on the events surrounding the suicide of Toews’ father and sister, both portray families with serious misgivings about life in the Mennonite community, as well as close but tumultuous bonds between sisters. Her most recent novel, Women Talking, portrays sexual abuse within a Mennonite colony and is her most stringent indictment of religious fundamentalism; it’s also a meditation on the shifting relationship between the two sisters at the story’s core. Toew’s themes related to the tenuous coexistence of religious tradition and modern life are echoed, in some ways, in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, the story of a thoughtful preacher in the American heartland. Additionally, Wallace Stegner’s essay collection Mormon Country provides a lyrical and nuanced history of Christian sects in North America.