- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Canada; 1st Edition edition (Sep 2 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307397491
- ISBN-13: 978-0307397492
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 717 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #79,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
A road novel helped along by a lovably nutty cast, Toews's latest (after A Complicated Kindness) follows a ragtag crew as they crisscross America. Hattie, recently dumped in Paris by her moody, adjective-hating boyfriend, returns home to Canada after receiving an emergency phone call from her niece. Turns out, Hattie's sister, Min, is back in the psych ward, and her kids, 11-year-old Thebes and 15-year-old Logan, are fending for themselves. Thus the quirky trio—purple-haired, wise-beyond-her-years Thebes, recently expelled brother Logan and overwhelmed Hattie—embark on a road trip to the States to find the kids' long-missing father. What follows is a Little Miss Sunshine–like quest in which the characters learn about themselves and each other as they weather car repairs, sleazy motel rooms and encounters with bizarre people. Toews's gift for writing precocious children and the story's antic momentum redeem the familiar set-up, and if the ending feels a bit rushed, it's largely because it's tough to let Toews's characters go. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Review
“Toews’s writing is a unique collision of sadness and humour. . . . The Flying Troutmans is a dark story but it is also a never-ending series of hilarious adventures.”
— Ottawa Citizen
“Engaging, humorous, grim, and redemptive, this is essential reading.”
— Library Journal
“It’s darkly funny, bursting at the seams with quirky characters and off-kilter pop culture references that rival Douglas Coupland’s for their incisive wit.”
— The Vancouver Sun
“Toews may have invented a new genre, the romantic-depressive comedy, at which she excels.”
— Toronto Star
“Toews has a terrific ability to capture the mix of irony and innocence in a smart child’s mind. . . . She balances heartbreak with laugh-out-loud wit.”
— Edmonton Journal
“Toews writes . . . in a high-energy original voice filled with love, fear, humour and originality. Miriam Toews is an extraordinarily gifted writer, one who writes with unsentimental compassion for her people and an honest understanding of their past, the tectonic shifts of their present and variables of their future.”
—The Globe and Mail
— Ottawa Citizen
“Engaging, humorous, grim, and redemptive, this is essential reading.”
— Library Journal
“It’s darkly funny, bursting at the seams with quirky characters and off-kilter pop culture references that rival Douglas Coupland’s for their incisive wit.”
— The Vancouver Sun
“Toews may have invented a new genre, the romantic-depressive comedy, at which she excels.”
— Toronto Star
“Toews has a terrific ability to capture the mix of irony and innocence in a smart child’s mind. . . . She balances heartbreak with laugh-out-loud wit.”
— Edmonton Journal
“Toews writes . . . in a high-energy original voice filled with love, fear, humour and originality. Miriam Toews is an extraordinarily gifted writer, one who writes with unsentimental compassion for her people and an honest understanding of their past, the tectonic shifts of their present and variables of their future.”
—The Globe and Mail
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flying Troutmans' Book Club selection,
By Retired reader ""Trish"" (Victoria, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Flying Troutmans (Hardcover)
Our club selected this book. The rich character development and poignancy of the story appealed to all of us. We fell in love with Logan and Thebes and wished the story could've continued to find out more about their lives...a very enjoyable and humorous read for the summer.
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Understatement,
By
This review is from: The Flying Troutmans (Hardcover)
Toews just has a knack for writing kid characters that are hard to not relate to. She has them down to the melodramatic poetry they scribble into notebooks and it's simply incredible just how much growing up she can stuff into them without losing that sense of childhood.
She's a master of tragic, dark comedy and I'm so happy that she moved away from her Mennonite subject matter to tackle something new.
17 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Book I Enjoyed,
By
This review is from: The Flying Troutmans (Hardcover)
A couple of years ago, I tried to read A Complicated Kindness by Mariam Towes. I didn't enjoy it and it is one of a very few books that I did not finish. Many people who enjoy similar books to me loved A Complicated Kindness and I always wondered if I gave up on it too easily. Flash forward to today and I thought I would try again with her next novel, The Flying Troutmans. I'm sad to say that although I finished this book, I did not enjoy it. I did not find the characters likable, I wasn't a fan of the writing style and I didn't enjoy the story. There will be many who will love this book but I, a die-hard fan of Canadian authors, did not.
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