Told through the form of minutes taken by once-outcast August Epp, the only man present, eight women and girls from two intertwined families grapple with their future. Every aspect of the situation is perilous –having been forbidden to learn to read, write or navigate a map, the women are utterly cut off from surrounding society. While the men of the colony are away in town attempting to bail out those in jail, a group of traumatized and brave women gathers in a hayloft to decide what to do: stay, leave or fight. "Women Talking" takes place after the arrests, over the course of two nights at a secret, women-only meeting. Toews takes as her inspiration the true case of the Bolivian “ghost rapes,” perpetrated by the men of a remote Mennonite colony in the mid-2000s, who drugged and raped women and children and then blamed the attacks on Satan as punishment for their sins. After two men were caught in the act, they confessed and named several other community members who had perpetrated these atrocities for years.
Miriam Toews’ astonishing new novel, "Women Talking" (Bloomsbury, 240 pp., ★★★★ out of four), offers a reading experience to simultaneously dazzle and horrify.
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