The Flying Troutmans
By: Miriam Toews
Publishing Date: September 2, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-307-39749-2
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Hattie Troutman leaves her life in Paris, following a desperate telephone call from her niece Thebes, setting off a wild journey of redemption, faith, and rebirth for the entire Troutman family. In her hilarious and heart warming novel The Flying Troutmans, award winning author Miriam Toews tells the story of a family torn apart by Min Troutman's mental illness, where her children Logan and Thebes along with her sister Hattie, struggle to come to terms with their lives and place in the world.
Miriam Toews creates a universe where the characters orbit the rise and setting of Min Troutman's mental condition. When Min is institutionalized, her sister Hattie spins the worlds of Logan and Thebes off on a makeshift road trip to find their father. As the Odyssey begins through the United States, punctuated by moments of laughter and deeper understanding of the family history, the Troutmans begin to pull together as one unit, in a symbolic rebirth. Just as the Sun is reborn after an eclipse, the Troutman family rediscovers itself and the basic humanity in each of the characters.
Author Miriam Toews (photo left) creates some of the most memorable characters in Canadian literature. In their own endearing ways, Hattie, Thebes, Logan, and the unpredictable Min, stay with the reader, leaving ever more clues to their characters. The characters are well drawn, with fullness and depth, along with the ability to grow into maturity as their story unfolds. Along the haphazard and unplanned travels through America, the troubled family discovers their importance to one another. While their lives had revolved completely around Min in the past, the other family members discover their own independent lives along the way.
Miriam Toews likens the family to planets orbiting a central, yet unpredictable sun in Min. Along with the motif of a solar system, the family are metaphorically compared to fish, and water themes flow through the book. From their fish name, to their twisting river like journey to meet their father, the Troutman family swims against the stream of life. When they learn to stop fighting the current, they avoid drowning, and swim together as a family unit. Indeed, the family has a fish they never see for months at a time, but they are afraid to search for it out of fear for what they might find. That strange lost fish characterizes the family's fear of searching for the real Min, and at the same time, they failed to search for themselves. Once freed of the suffocating Min orbit, Hattie, Logan, and Thebes are reborn as individuals. They also share in the rebirth of Min as part of the renewed family unit.
I highly recommend the spellbinding The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews, to anyone seeking a story of rebirth, renewal, and filled with wonderful characters. The novel can be read on many levels, whether as a family story, a powerful character study, or as a symbolic odyssey to self discovery. The novel is effective at every level, and the wonderful characters leave an impression, long after the book is finished.
Read the powerful and absorbing The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews, and be drawn into the Troutman family orbit. The voyage has laughter, tears, and the power of humanity to overcome obstacles, survive, and endure. The novel is destined to become a classic in Canadian Prairie Literature.
