All My Puny Sorrows

In this quasi-autobiographical audiobook, Miriam Toews explores the pain of loving and caring for a family member who is ravaged by mental illness. Erin Moon narrates the story of Yolandi, the twice-divorced single parent and less than successful younger sister of Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist who has a loving husband and support group. Using a world-weary voice, Moon draws listeners into this world. The book's language is beautiful, but the subject is depressing, and listening is difficult. Moon successfully conveys, in every word, the pain, hopelessness, and despair of Yolandi, who cannot save her talented older sister from the demons in her mind who torture her and make death more inviting than all the love in her life. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 15, 2014
Elfrieda’s a concert pianist. When we were kids she would occasionally let me be her page-tuner for the fast pieces that she hadn’t memorized.” This sentence, in the voice of the younger Yolandi, crystallizes the dynamic of the two sisters in Toews’s (Summer of My Amazing Luck) latest novel. While Elfrieda is the genius and the perfectionist, it is the practical, capable Yolandi on whom she depends. Over the course of this tender and bittersweet novel, Elf tours the world while Yoli stays put, has two kids with two different men but stays with neither of the fathers. It is Elf’s debilitating depression and suicidal tendencies that keep the two urgently close as Yoli, for decades, does everything she can to help Elf ward off her psychological problems. The prose throughout the book is lively and original and moves along at a steady clip. Though there are some underdeveloped aspects (their upbringing in a Mennonite household, Yoli’s experience of motherhood), the novel is a triumph in its depiction of the love the sisters share, as Yoli tries, just as when she was a page turner, to stay a few beats ahead.