A review by skeltonse
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Definitely tops the list of books I would have told my father not to read, and yet also one of the books I’m most glad he has read. 
„I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.“
„It was a typical prairie storm, angry with the dryness it had been forced to endure.“
„The coldest city in the world and yet the hottest, the farthest from the sun and yet the brightest, where two fierce, wild rivers meet to join forces and conquer man“
„Everyone in the whole world was fighting with somebody to stay. 

When Richard Bach wrote "If you love someone, set them free" he can't have been directing his advice at human beings.“
„and I finally 

understand what she needs to hear…and I tell her that my sorrow was not created by her, that my childhood was a joyful thing, an island in the sun, that her mothering is impeccable, that she is not to blame.“
„…it was ludicrous to think that we could just talk our way out of shame, that shame was necessary, that it prevented us from repeating shameful actions and that it motivated us to say we were sorry and to seek forgiveness and to empathize with our fellow humans and to feel the pain of self-loathing which motivated some of us to write books as a futile attempt at atonement, and shame also helped, I told my friend, to fuck up relationships and fucked-up relationships are the life force of books and movies and theatre so sure, let's get rid of shame but then we can kiss art goodbye too“
„She told me that the brain is built to forget things as we continue to live, that memories are meant to fade and disintegrate“