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Swing Low
After her father took his own life in 1998, Miriam Toews decided to face her confusion and pain straight on. In writing her father’s memoir, she was motivated by two primary For her own sake, she needed to understand, or at least accept, her father’s final decision. For her father’s sake, she needed to honour him, to elucidate his life and to demonstrate its worth.
Apart from its brief prologue and epilogue, Swing Low is written entirely from Mel Toews’s perspective. Miriam Toews has her father tell his story from bed as he waits in a Steinbach hospital to be transferred to a psychiatric facility in Winnipeg. Mel turns to writing to make sense of his condition, to review his life in the hope of seeing it more clearly. He remembers himself as an anxious child, the son of a despondent father and an alcoholic mother, who never once made him feel loved. At seventeen he was diagnosed with manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder). His psychiatrist’s predictions were Mel shouldn’t count on marrying, starting a family or holding down a job. With great courage and determination, Mel went on to do all he married his childhood sweetheart, had two happy daughters and was a highly respected and beloved teacher for forty years.
Although Mel was able to keep his disorder hidden from the community, his family frequently witnessed his unravelling. Over the years this schism between his public and private life grew wider. An outgoing and tireless trailblazer at school, he often collapsed into silence and despair at home. Ironically, in trying to win his family’s love through hard work and accomplishments, he deprived them of what they yearned for his presence, his voice. Once he retired from teaching – "the daily ritual of stepping outside himself" – Mel lost his creative outlet and, with it, his hope.
In the Globe and Mail, author Moira Farr described Swing Low as "audacious, original and profoundly moving." She "Getting into the head of your own father – your own largely silent, mentally ill father, who killed himself – has to be a kind of literary high-wire act that few would dare to try.… Healing is a likely outcome of a book imbued with the righteous anger, compassion and humanity of Swing Low ."
Apart from its brief prologue and epilogue, Swing Low is written entirely from Mel Toews’s perspective. Miriam Toews has her father tell his story from bed as he waits in a Steinbach hospital to be transferred to a psychiatric facility in Winnipeg. Mel turns to writing to make sense of his condition, to review his life in the hope of seeing it more clearly. He remembers himself as an anxious child, the son of a despondent father and an alcoholic mother, who never once made him feel loved. At seventeen he was diagnosed with manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder). His psychiatrist’s predictions were Mel shouldn’t count on marrying, starting a family or holding down a job. With great courage and determination, Mel went on to do all he married his childhood sweetheart, had two happy daughters and was a highly respected and beloved teacher for forty years.
Although Mel was able to keep his disorder hidden from the community, his family frequently witnessed his unravelling. Over the years this schism between his public and private life grew wider. An outgoing and tireless trailblazer at school, he often collapsed into silence and despair at home. Ironically, in trying to win his family’s love through hard work and accomplishments, he deprived them of what they yearned for his presence, his voice. Once he retired from teaching – "the daily ritual of stepping outside himself" – Mel lost his creative outlet and, with it, his hope.
In the Globe and Mail, author Moira Farr described Swing Low as "audacious, original and profoundly moving." She "Getting into the head of your own father – your own largely silent, mentally ill father, who killed himself – has to be a kind of literary high-wire act that few would dare to try.… Healing is a likely outcome of a book imbued with the righteous anger, compassion and humanity of Swing Low ."
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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6277 people want to read
About the author
Miriam Toews
18 books3,154 followersMiriam Toews is a Canadian writer of Mennonite descent. She grew up in Steinbach, Manitoba and has lived in Montreal and London, before settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Toews studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of King's College in Halifax, and has also worked as a freelance newspaper and radio journalist. Her non-fiction book "Swing Low: A Life" was a memoir of her father, a victim of lifelong depression. Her 2004 novel "A Complicated Kindness" was her breakthrough work, spending over a year on the Canadian bestseller lists and winning the Governor General's Award for English Fiction. The novel, about a teenage girl who longs to escape her small Russian Mennonite town and hang out with Lou Reed in the slums of New York City, was also nominated for the Giller Prize and was the winning title in the 2006 edition of Canada Reads.
A series of letters she wrote in 2000 to the father of her son were published on the website www.openletters.net and were profiled on the radio show This American Life in an episode about missing parents.
In 2007 she made her screen debut in the Mexican film "Luz silenciosa" directed by Carlos Reygadas, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
In Sept. 2008, Knopf Canada published her novel "The Flying Troutmans", about a 28-year-old woman from Manitoba who takes her 15-year-old nephew and 11-year-old niece on a road trip to California after their mentally ill mother has been hospitalized.
The book, Irma Voth, was released in April 2011. Her latest book, All My Puny Sorrows, was published in April 2014.
For more information see Miriam Toews (1964–) Biography - Personal, Addresses, Career, Honors Awards, Writings, Adaptations, Sidelights
The following is an interesting article written by Miriam Toews:
http://lithub.com/how-pacifism-can-le...
Toews studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of King's College in Halifax, and has also worked as a freelance newspaper and radio journalist. Her non-fiction book "Swing Low: A Life" was a memoir of her father, a victim of lifelong depression. Her 2004 novel "A Complicated Kindness" was her breakthrough work, spending over a year on the Canadian bestseller lists and winning the Governor General's Award for English Fiction. The novel, about a teenage girl who longs to escape her small Russian Mennonite town and hang out with Lou Reed in the slums of New York City, was also nominated for the Giller Prize and was the winning title in the 2006 edition of Canada Reads.
A series of letters she wrote in 2000 to the father of her son were published on the website www.openletters.net and were profiled on the radio show This American Life in an episode about missing parents.
In 2007 she made her screen debut in the Mexican film "Luz silenciosa" directed by Carlos Reygadas, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
In Sept. 2008, Knopf Canada published her novel "The Flying Troutmans", about a 28-year-old woman from Manitoba who takes her 15-year-old nephew and 11-year-old niece on a road trip to California after their mentally ill mother has been hospitalized.
The book, Irma Voth, was released in April 2011. Her latest book, All My Puny Sorrows, was published in April 2014.
For more information see Miriam Toews (1964–) Biography - Personal, Addresses, Career, Honors Awards, Writings, Adaptations, Sidelights
The following is an interesting article written by Miriam Toews:
http://lithub.com/how-pacifism-can-le...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
December 1, 2021
What’s Left After Words?
A biography of one’s little known father would seem a risky commercial venture. Make it first person and the rest of the family is likely to resent the presumption. Write it from the perspective of a man with advanced dementia, and total disaster can’t be far distant.
And yet Miriam Toews carries it off magnificently. The book, it turns out is only nominally about her father, Mel. Mainly it’s about her coping with what he left behind , namely an apparently inexplicable decision on his part to end his life. The book is therapy, in which she invents what was in his head based upon the facts of his life, those known to the intimate world of his Mennonite society, and those shared only within the family.
Despite the manner of his death, Mel is a hero to Miriam. In fact his suicide confirms his integrity. His life was a battle with his bipolar condition, his high functioning autism, and his complete inability to express himself in personal relationships. Yet he had overcome these handicaps to develop a loving marriage, raise a family, pursue a successful career as a teacher, and generate universal respect within his community.
Like any other history, Mel’s is a fiction. Miriam doesn’t actually know what thoughts Mel had. She only knows his behaviour, which seems confused, erratic and at times irascible. She sees him scribbling page after page nonsense, and intuits what he trying to do, that is, to tell his story. So she does the work of which he was incapable. That she can imagine herself as her father is a tribute to both of them. Especially because, as Miriam articulates for Mel, “There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.”
A biography of one’s little known father would seem a risky commercial venture. Make it first person and the rest of the family is likely to resent the presumption. Write it from the perspective of a man with advanced dementia, and total disaster can’t be far distant.
And yet Miriam Toews carries it off magnificently. The book, it turns out is only nominally about her father, Mel. Mainly it’s about her coping with what he left behind , namely an apparently inexplicable decision on his part to end his life. The book is therapy, in which she invents what was in his head based upon the facts of his life, those known to the intimate world of his Mennonite society, and those shared only within the family.
Despite the manner of his death, Mel is a hero to Miriam. In fact his suicide confirms his integrity. His life was a battle with his bipolar condition, his high functioning autism, and his complete inability to express himself in personal relationships. Yet he had overcome these handicaps to develop a loving marriage, raise a family, pursue a successful career as a teacher, and generate universal respect within his community.
Like any other history, Mel’s is a fiction. Miriam doesn’t actually know what thoughts Mel had. She only knows his behaviour, which seems confused, erratic and at times irascible. She sees him scribbling page after page nonsense, and intuits what he trying to do, that is, to tell his story. So she does the work of which he was incapable. That she can imagine herself as her father is a tribute to both of them. Especially because, as Miriam articulates for Mel, “There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.”
June 22, 2013
There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.
November 20, 2020
This is a memoir of a man (Mel Toews) who suffered from life long bipolar disorder, commits suicide, and then tells his story from beyond the pale (i.e. beyond the grave). Do I have your attention yet? Obviously he couldn't write his memoir after committing suicide. But his memoir did get written in his own first person voice--by his daughter. The very concept causes me to shutter from its haunted poignancy.
The day before his suicide his daughter, Miriam, asked him what he was thinking. His answer was, "Nothing accomplished." Her goal in writing this book was to prove him wrong. She did an admirable job. Miriam Toews used her skill as a writer to get inside his troubled mind to explain why he decided to end it all.
In the Prologue and Epilogue Miriam writes in her own voice. All of the rest of the book is written as private thoughts of Mel during the final days of his life while being hospitalized as a result of an apparent recent psychotic break. The narrative switches between current hospital scenes and recollections of earlier years. The reflections of earlier life are filled with interesting tales of growing up on a farm, delivering eggs, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a family in the midst of private torment. The author's writing skills transforms accounts of a rather plain life into an interesting book; I especially enjoyed the account of a six week family trip to South and Central America. The descriptions of the current hospitalization experience contains elements of suspense by mentioning blood and killing his wife. But he's not thinking clearly, and his daughters assure him that his wife is fine and has moved to the City (Winnipeg). But the cause of his most recent admittance to the hospital remains ambiguous.
At age 17 Mel had been diagnosed with manic depression (as it was labeled then). The seriousness of his disease is indicated by the following advice from his psychiatrist:
Mel did not take the aforementioned advice and got married and became a teacher. One could say that he proved his psychiatrist wrong by maintaining a long marriage, raising two daughters, and having a long career as a sixth grade teacher. But it can be argued that the psychiatrist had a legitimate concern. Maintaining the external appearance of normalcy was excruciating work for Mel, and his family life sadly suffered as a result.
He says in the book that he had monthly appointments with a psychiatrist and took psychiatric drugs all his life which indicates that he must have been a compliant patient. However, the following quotation from the book indicates that he didn't fully accept the concept of Freudian psychology.
Both of his daughter's were anxious to leave their home town of Steinbach, Manitoba as soon as they finished twelfth grade. Mel admits that he modeled a life that they apparently wanted to avoid for themselves. Miriam (the actual author) had very strong feelings on the matter as indicated by the following quotation:
I considered this to be a biography. But I found the book in the library placed in the 616 Section (diseases, within section for medical sciences). It was on the library shelf next to other books about mental health and depression.
I learned much about Miriam from this book. I had often wondered while reading her novels how much of her writing came from personal experiences and how much was imagined by her creative mind. I think I can now find traces of her life's history in all of her novels. Her novels have creatively rearranged the characters and experiences of her life into a variety of settings. But it is no accident that almost all her stories somehow involve a strained father-daughter relationship. There's more I could say here, but I'm getting off the subject of this book.
My previously mentioned haunted poignancy became stronger when I recently learned that Miriam's sister, named Marj, committed suicide near the 12th anniversary of her father's death, at the same place and in the same manner. [LINK TO STORY] I told this story to some friends recently who instead of being shocked told me that they had known of similar occurrences in other families.
An article by Miriam Toews:
https://lithub.com/how-pacifism-can-l...
The day before his suicide his daughter, Miriam, asked him what he was thinking. His answer was, "Nothing accomplished." Her goal in writing this book was to prove him wrong. She did an admirable job. Miriam Toews used her skill as a writer to get inside his troubled mind to explain why he decided to end it all.
In the Prologue and Epilogue Miriam writes in her own voice. All of the rest of the book is written as private thoughts of Mel during the final days of his life while being hospitalized as a result of an apparent recent psychotic break. The narrative switches between current hospital scenes and recollections of earlier years. The reflections of earlier life are filled with interesting tales of growing up on a farm, delivering eggs, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a family in the midst of private torment. The author's writing skills transforms accounts of a rather plain life into an interesting book; I especially enjoyed the account of a six week family trip to South and Central America. The descriptions of the current hospitalization experience contains elements of suspense by mentioning blood and killing his wife. But he's not thinking clearly, and his daughters assure him that his wife is fine and has moved to the City (Winnipeg). But the cause of his most recent admittance to the hospital remains ambiguous.
At age 17 Mel had been diagnosed with manic depression (as it was labeled then). The seriousness of his disease is indicated by the following advice from his psychiatrist:
"My psychiatrist had, when I informed him that I was planning to get married, expressed no small amount of shock and dismay. He told me that those who suffer from manic depression have a lot of difficulty making marriages or any long-term relationship work, and when I told him that I was also planning on becoming a school teacher, he almost hit the roof. The responsibility, Mel, the consistency, the patience, the endurance . . . all these things are extremely difficult to maintain with an illness like yours . . . won't you reconsider?"
Mel did not take the aforementioned advice and got married and became a teacher. One could say that he proved his psychiatrist wrong by maintaining a long marriage, raising two daughters, and having a long career as a sixth grade teacher. But it can be argued that the psychiatrist had a legitimate concern. Maintaining the external appearance of normalcy was excruciating work for Mel, and his family life sadly suffered as a result.
He says in the book that he had monthly appointments with a psychiatrist and took psychiatric drugs all his life which indicates that he must have been a compliant patient. However, the following quotation from the book indicates that he didn't fully accept the concept of Freudian psychology.
"Never, ever did I admit or acknowledge even to myself that I was sick. My lapses into depression, I felt, were due to a weakness in my character, and my disappointments and failures in life, though they were rather typical of any average life, were what I felt I deserved. And so I resolved, with steely determination, to become a better human being."
Both of his daughter's were anxious to leave their home town of Steinbach, Manitoba as soon as they finished twelfth grade. Mel admits that he modeled a life that they apparently wanted to avoid for themselves. Miriam (the actual author) had very strong feelings on the matter as indicated by the following quotation:
"She [Miriam's sister] wasn't as quick as Miriam to denounce everything about this place as being backward, soul-destroying, hypocritical, or excruciatingly dull."
I considered this to be a biography. But I found the book in the library placed in the 616 Section (diseases, within section for medical sciences). It was on the library shelf next to other books about mental health and depression.
I learned much about Miriam from this book. I had often wondered while reading her novels how much of her writing came from personal experiences and how much was imagined by her creative mind. I think I can now find traces of her life's history in all of her novels. Her novels have creatively rearranged the characters and experiences of her life into a variety of settings. But it is no accident that almost all her stories somehow involve a strained father-daughter relationship. There's more I could say here, but I'm getting off the subject of this book.
My previously mentioned haunted poignancy became stronger when I recently learned that Miriam's sister, named Marj, committed suicide near the 12th anniversary of her father's death, at the same place and in the same manner. [LINK TO STORY] I told this story to some friends recently who instead of being shocked told me that they had known of similar occurrences in other families.
An article by Miriam Toews:
https://lithub.com/how-pacifism-can-l...
June 10, 2016
"There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors."
I found this to be the most telling sentence of what it must be like to be fully and deeply depressed.
This is a lovely tribute to one's father. It's warmly, lovingly and tenderly told, with understanding and compassion. It's beautiful in this context.
Mel's story is a remarkable one. His life was successful in every way: a job he loved, a wife he loved, a family he loved, friends he enjoyed......yet the darkness never left him and he wasn't able to enjoy his successes. He didn't feel he had any; to him, he was a failure. This loving, successful man thought he was a failure. I wish him nothing but peace, wherever he is.
However, this story, well-told as it is, is a daughter's attempt to enter the mind of her depressed father to try to understand what happened. It's a loving thing to do but it leaves a disconnect as well. One can't enter the mind of a depressed person that easily (David Foster Wallace did it best in one description of depression in Infinite Jest). Having that person be a loving father makes it harder yet to do, I think.
This is a beautiful story and a loving tribute. There are a couple of questions that I'd be interested in having answered (perhaps they can't be; perhaps there are no answers): where are the doctors in the hospital? why did none of the psychiatrists over the years listen to the family?
I found this to be the most telling sentence of what it must be like to be fully and deeply depressed.
This is a lovely tribute to one's father. It's warmly, lovingly and tenderly told, with understanding and compassion. It's beautiful in this context.
Mel's story is a remarkable one. His life was successful in every way: a job he loved, a wife he loved, a family he loved, friends he enjoyed......yet the darkness never left him and he wasn't able to enjoy his successes. He didn't feel he had any; to him, he was a failure. This loving, successful man thought he was a failure. I wish him nothing but peace, wherever he is.
However, this story, well-told as it is, is a daughter's attempt to enter the mind of her depressed father to try to understand what happened. It's a loving thing to do but it leaves a disconnect as well. One can't enter the mind of a depressed person that easily (David Foster Wallace did it best in one description of depression in Infinite Jest). Having that person be a loving father makes it harder yet to do, I think.
This is a beautiful story and a loving tribute. There are a couple of questions that I'd be interested in having answered (perhaps they can't be; perhaps there are no answers): where are the doctors in the hospital? why did none of the psychiatrists over the years listen to the family?
February 15, 2023
Non conoscevo questo libro, non conoscevo la trama e leggere una lettura senza aspettative fa sempre bene al cuore. Questa lettura – nonostante qualche parte più lenta – mi è piaciuta veramente tanto, soprattutto per il punto di vista e per i temi affrontati, per nulla banali e super interessanti. Il protagonista Mel è un uomo forte e pieno di vita, ma sin da giovane è malato: soffre di depressione, è bipolare e la sua vita cambia ogni attimo.
Un libro forte, narrato dalla figlia del protagonista, che mette in luce la malattia del padre.
Un libro narrato da diversi punti di vista: il protagonista da giovane alle prese con il lavoro d’insegnante e con la famiglia e il protagonista da adulto/anziano, ormai malato e in cura in un ospedale. Due punti di vista certamente molto diversi tra di loro, ma che fanno riflettere tanto, perché la vita, con o senza una malattia che riguarda un familiare, tende a far cambiare l’intera famiglia, nel bene e nel male.
April 26, 2024
Although this was a "good read", I can't say I enjoyed it fully. In Swing Low, Miriam Toews writes her father's history for him after he has died by suicide. Her father suffered from bipolar and was pretty much non-verbal at home, despite being vivacious, lively and talkative at work as a schoolteacher. Miriam displays the dichotomy between her father's home life and work life and the impact it had on his wife and two daughters.
I think where it fell short for me is that Miriam is writing for her father. It isn't strictly his voice we're hearing or his thoughts we're observing. Although a daughter obviously knows her dad pretty well, and she uses notes that he wrote to himself over the years as reference, no-one ever really knows the inner workings of another. Mel Toews is an enigma and will likely remain one for all time. We can't ever assume we know someone to write their history for them.
Nevertheless an interesting and especially tragic book about the real effects of mental illness.
I think where it fell short for me is that Miriam is writing for her father. It isn't strictly his voice we're hearing or his thoughts we're observing. Although a daughter obviously knows her dad pretty well, and she uses notes that he wrote to himself over the years as reference, no-one ever really knows the inner workings of another. Mel Toews is an enigma and will likely remain one for all time. We can't ever assume we know someone to write their history for them.
Nevertheless an interesting and especially tragic book about the real effects of mental illness.
January 5, 2021
I wanted to read this because I read the author's novel All My Puny Sorrows. The novel deals with family suicide, and I heard that Miriam Toews had experience with suicides in her own family. I ended up liking this book quite a lot more than the novel.
This is a biography of her father, which she wrote in the first person, as if she were her father. Her father Mel suffered from manic depression (now called bipolar disorder) from a very young age. He managed to remain relatively happy and functional by focusing on the things he enjoyed such as gardening and teaching. He was an enthusiastic and much-loved sixth-grade teacher for decades.
When Mel was in his early sixties, he started having heart trouble and had to give up teaching. Apparently, teaching was the thing that was keeping him going all those years, because he committed suicide shortly after ending his career. (These are not spoilers. She lays it all out right at the beginning.)
It sounds terribly depressing, and it is ultimately sad, but her father Mel led a full and interesting life. His sorrow was tempered with great joy and accomplishment, and he was greatly beloved by all his students and former students. He loved growing flowers, and this passage from page 115 made me fall in love with him:
"I couldn't stop thinking about my flowers, my petunias and tiger lilies and tulips and crocuses and roses and pansies and gardenias and. . .When I woke up in the morning I would rush to the kitchen window to look at my flowers. Just a glimpse of them gave me a feeling of hope and absolute relief, akin perhaps to the feeling a ship-wrecked survivor has when he first spots land in the distance and knows he is saved."
March 14, 2021
Beautiful portrait of her father, who struggled with manic depression his whole life and committed suicide at 62.
"Is depression in part a result of not feeling at home in this world, and blaming yourself for it? Is depression nothing but anger turned inwards, as some say? Does it stem from a childhood loss? From a genetic propensity? From self-hatred? From an inability to be oneself? From having no purpose? From an inability to be free? From a fear of freedom? From the desire to be free and confined at the same time? From choking on a peanut as a two-year-old?
Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions."
"Is depression in part a result of not feeling at home in this world, and blaming yourself for it? Is depression nothing but anger turned inwards, as some say? Does it stem from a childhood loss? From a genetic propensity? From self-hatred? From an inability to be oneself? From having no purpose? From an inability to be free? From a fear of freedom? From the desire to be free and confined at the same time? From choking on a peanut as a two-year-old?
Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions."
April 13, 2024
I don’t have anything clever to say. I think about this book all the time.
To my friend, Kate C, reminded me of Gilead. I don’t think you would love it.
To my friend, Kate C, reminded me of Gilead. I don’t think you would love it.
October 2, 2011
Original review posted here
Let me just say … I did not enjoy Irma Voth – the fiction novel that Miriam Toews wrote and I reviewed just a few weeks ago. So it was with some trepidation that I picked Swing Low up off my shelf.
I was blown away.
Seriously, this book was nothing at all like Irma Voth. It was clear, concise, and a beautiful tribute to her father. Miriam’s voice, as she speaks from her father’s point of view, is crystal clear, heart-breaking and filled with love. I never once got the sense that he was, in any way shape or form, a bad man. I understood that he was sick, broken in a way, I understood that he loved his family – his wife and his children, and I wept when we came to the point of his last decision.
All through the book what spoke loudest to me was his daughters forgiveness. Miriam shows with complete clarity that, while she loved her father dearly, she cannot hate him for what he did. How powerful is that forgiveness? It spoke to my heart, it made me weep, it made me appreciate my own parents more and think about just how serious, how dreadful and how dangerous mental disorders can be.
Take the time to hug your family. Tell them you love them. Read this book if you need a good kick in the pants to remind you of how special they are.
Let me just say … I did not enjoy Irma Voth – the fiction novel that Miriam Toews wrote and I reviewed just a few weeks ago. So it was with some trepidation that I picked Swing Low up off my shelf.
I was blown away.
Seriously, this book was nothing at all like Irma Voth. It was clear, concise, and a beautiful tribute to her father. Miriam’s voice, as she speaks from her father’s point of view, is crystal clear, heart-breaking and filled with love. I never once got the sense that he was, in any way shape or form, a bad man. I understood that he was sick, broken in a way, I understood that he loved his family – his wife and his children, and I wept when we came to the point of his last decision.
All through the book what spoke loudest to me was his daughters forgiveness. Miriam shows with complete clarity that, while she loved her father dearly, she cannot hate him for what he did. How powerful is that forgiveness? It spoke to my heart, it made me weep, it made me appreciate my own parents more and think about just how serious, how dreadful and how dangerous mental disorders can be.
Take the time to hug your family. Tell them you love them. Read this book if you need a good kick in the pants to remind you of how special they are.
September 6, 2011
This had to be an incredibly difficult book to write. Miriam, the protagonist's daughter, tried to get into his head and recreate thoughts he might have been having. She began at the end. The prologue is Mel's end. He committed suicide at the age of 62. Having taught school for 40 years, sustained a marriage and a life, hiding mental illness through his work and church devotion, he ended his life before dementia took his mind.
The first few chapters confused me a bit. They were circular and difficult to follow. Apparently, Miriam's father not only suffered from being bi-polar but also had psychotic episodes. And, it would seem, a little bit of Fugue. Ergo, if he was getting lost in his thoughts, obviously the reader would, also.
About a third of the way through the book, I recognized a pattern. Mel was trying to link the events of the past few days to his life and had decided to start at the beginning. He recounted his childhood in his Mennonite community but also included his ancestral chain which hinted of depression, as well. Driven by guilt and shame which are linked to his upbringing and culture rather than religion, he becomes quiet when he can, robust when he needs to play a part.
At the same time, Mel is interacting with the reader and world. By world, I really mean his daughters and hospital staff. Mel is currently hospitalized while his daughters are working to get Mel help. But he has spent the past 62 years knowing how to answer questions and playing the part. His wife is exhausted and she needs help. Thus the interaction.
The book concludes with Mel's suicide, of course but the author offers a culmination of his life's work which is much greater than he believed and in direct contradiction of his last words to her; Nothing accomplished. As the author clearly points out in another chapter, regarding a different aspect, Mel laments that there are no windows in the house of Depression - only mirrors.
Through the internal dialogue and memories, the author paints a picture of a faithful Mennonite man, a father, a husband, a teacher, a sufferer of Bi-Polar Disorder, at times psychotic, other times clever and witty. Well connected and loved member of the community, he found it exhausting to live up to others' expectations (loved that nugget). He was a man of extremes and afraid of change.
Speaking of change, how many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Change?
Not my joke, I got it from the book.
Objectively written for such a personal subject. Nice work!
The first few chapters confused me a bit. They were circular and difficult to follow. Apparently, Miriam's father not only suffered from being bi-polar but also had psychotic episodes. And, it would seem, a little bit of Fugue. Ergo, if he was getting lost in his thoughts, obviously the reader would, also.
About a third of the way through the book, I recognized a pattern. Mel was trying to link the events of the past few days to his life and had decided to start at the beginning. He recounted his childhood in his Mennonite community but also included his ancestral chain which hinted of depression, as well. Driven by guilt and shame which are linked to his upbringing and culture rather than religion, he becomes quiet when he can, robust when he needs to play a part.
At the same time, Mel is interacting with the reader and world. By world, I really mean his daughters and hospital staff. Mel is currently hospitalized while his daughters are working to get Mel help. But he has spent the past 62 years knowing how to answer questions and playing the part. His wife is exhausted and she needs help. Thus the interaction.
The book concludes with Mel's suicide, of course but the author offers a culmination of his life's work which is much greater than he believed and in direct contradiction of his last words to her; Nothing accomplished. As the author clearly points out in another chapter, regarding a different aspect, Mel laments that there are no windows in the house of Depression - only mirrors.
Through the internal dialogue and memories, the author paints a picture of a faithful Mennonite man, a father, a husband, a teacher, a sufferer of Bi-Polar Disorder, at times psychotic, other times clever and witty. Well connected and loved member of the community, he found it exhausting to live up to others' expectations (loved that nugget). He was a man of extremes and afraid of change.
Speaking of change, how many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Change?
Not my joke, I got it from the book.
Objectively written for such a personal subject. Nice work!
September 11, 2021
I finished reading this a little over thirty minutes ago, and have needed time to be able to compose my thoughts to be able to type this. I haven't been this emotional since I read 'Sugar' by Bernice McFadden. I had to read the story of Miriam's Dad slowly so I could sit with each moment of his life, with each of his deep and searching thoughts, unpacking, analysing, thinking, dissecting, with plenty of deep breaths to accompany it all. I'm still very affected by the ending, still breathing deeply and often. Miriam has written an incredibly touching, painful and beautiful ode to her father, that will always sit inside me, and I will always remember so many moments in his story, his life. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure there are words to define how this book has touched me. But what I do know: Spending the last three days with Melvin has been three of the most moving and incredible reading days I've ever had. Miriam Toews is firmly my favourite author, and her rainbow will always be the brightest and most wonderful in my reading life.
February 4, 2019
Toews is one of my favorites, and when reading this, one really feels the struggle of a family member with manic depression - it's not easy for anyone - the person experiencing it, the spouse and caregiver, the children at any age.
As important as this book felt (especially to Toews as she writes this from her father's imaginary perspective), this was incredibly hard to read. Not because it was such a hard subject, but the start-stop of the writing. Toews flips from her father's past to present constantly and it was choppy and disruptive to me. I also found some of the minutiae of the past just incredibly boring - the family trip to the Andes, for instance, was mind-numbing. I understand this book was an important one to write as tribute to her father and possibly theraputic for the author, but it felt less important (for me) to read.
As important as this book felt (especially to Toews as she writes this from her father's imaginary perspective), this was incredibly hard to read. Not because it was such a hard subject, but the start-stop of the writing. Toews flips from her father's past to present constantly and it was choppy and disruptive to me. I also found some of the minutiae of the past just incredibly boring - the family trip to the Andes, for instance, was mind-numbing. I understand this book was an important one to write as tribute to her father and possibly theraputic for the author, but it felt less important (for me) to read.
April 22, 2019
The absolute strength of this book is that it feels like Melvin Toews is the one writing it. The voice is clear as a bell as it bounces between the present day where he is hospitalized before taking his own life and the past where he tells the story up to the present.
I am constantly amazed and humbled by Miriam Toews' writing. I love her work though the subject matter is not the cheeriest. I think her subjects of mental illness, depression and suicide are vital to discuss in open and validating ways and that is why I find her stories compelling. They speak to my soul.
I am constantly amazed and humbled by Miriam Toews' writing. I love her work though the subject matter is not the cheeriest. I think her subjects of mental illness, depression and suicide are vital to discuss in open and validating ways and that is why I find her stories compelling. They speak to my soul.
September 21, 2018
Miriam Toews wrote this memoir from her father's perspective as a tribute to him after he took his own life. To show the value of his life when he considered himself worthless. While I appreciate what she was trying to do here, and that it was also a means to her own healing, there wasn't as much insight into living with bipolar disorder as I had hoped. I feel like the reader may have garnered more information, and emotion too, if the book was written from her own perspective.
March 11, 2016
Wow this book was really heartbreaking at the same time it was uplifting and hilarious. Not to be undertaken lightly! But a really beautiful story and nice tribute to her dad. TJ you may like this book!
June 11, 2025
"We read to know we're not alone. C.S. Lewis was a brilliant man in my opinion. He believed in God, he was a good writer, and a kind person by all accounts. One question I would have liked to ask him, however, is this: how does a man feel less alone when he can no longer read?"
A devastating work. Certainly not the first Toews anyone should read, but easily the most indicative. I'd always kind of taken for granted Toews' fractal, stream-of-consciousness stylings as just the work of a very good post-modernist. She was someone who has such a good figner to the pulse of the human condition that she can evoke the tapestry of memory, one thing connecting to another across space and time, with a deftness and a sense of heart. But "Swing Low" recharictarizes her entire bibliography.
Here, she writes a memoir from the perspective of her dying father, assembled together through the notes he had wrote to himself, or dictated through her, in order to get through the day. The book depicts her father, suffering with bipolar and dimentia, struggling to piece his life back together and solve the mystery of his own life. Of course, there is no real mystery. Instead, Toews depicts her father as someone caught in the grips of debilitating anxiety, unable despite it all to accept or internalize the love of those around him. The world - particularly, his Mennonite upbringing - has taught him to diminish, to be silent, to disappear from focus. It's the story of a man honour-bound to not take up space, where his only retreat is into memory.
I mentioned this in my "Roverandom" review, but I've been thinking a lot about the importance of authors knowing themselves. After reading "Swing Low," it is achingly clear that so much of Toews' skill of charicterizing people and depression comes from her proximity with herself and her family. Of course, much of her writing is autobiographical in nature and this is just the text that (mostly) removes that lens of fiction. But still, there is a painful level of honesty that a work like this requires. And it's telling, at least to me, just how much of an improvement this is over her two former books. In facing this level of self-honesty, Toews is able to write out of this impressive clarity of self, clarity of origin, etc. She can dive into these overwhelming depths and come out unscathed. It takes and makes a great author to be able to do that.
I still have one more book from Toews to go before finishing her books, and I'm very sad to be near the end of this journey. But I am also incredibly fascinated to see what her book coming out this year - a return to memoir! - will be like. She has spent so much of writing recontextualizing her own life, and I'm so curious to see what she does when the framing of it all is removed. Anyways, it always gives me comfort to know one of the best writers alive grew up just an hour south from me. Thanks for everything, Miriam.
A devastating work. Certainly not the first Toews anyone should read, but easily the most indicative. I'd always kind of taken for granted Toews' fractal, stream-of-consciousness stylings as just the work of a very good post-modernist. She was someone who has such a good figner to the pulse of the human condition that she can evoke the tapestry of memory, one thing connecting to another across space and time, with a deftness and a sense of heart. But "Swing Low" recharictarizes her entire bibliography.
Here, she writes a memoir from the perspective of her dying father, assembled together through the notes he had wrote to himself, or dictated through her, in order to get through the day. The book depicts her father, suffering with bipolar and dimentia, struggling to piece his life back together and solve the mystery of his own life. Of course, there is no real mystery. Instead, Toews depicts her father as someone caught in the grips of debilitating anxiety, unable despite it all to accept or internalize the love of those around him. The world - particularly, his Mennonite upbringing - has taught him to diminish, to be silent, to disappear from focus. It's the story of a man honour-bound to not take up space, where his only retreat is into memory.
I mentioned this in my "Roverandom" review, but I've been thinking a lot about the importance of authors knowing themselves. After reading "Swing Low," it is achingly clear that so much of Toews' skill of charicterizing people and depression comes from her proximity with herself and her family. Of course, much of her writing is autobiographical in nature and this is just the text that (mostly) removes that lens of fiction. But still, there is a painful level of honesty that a work like this requires. And it's telling, at least to me, just how much of an improvement this is over her two former books. In facing this level of self-honesty, Toews is able to write out of this impressive clarity of self, clarity of origin, etc. She can dive into these overwhelming depths and come out unscathed. It takes and makes a great author to be able to do that.
I still have one more book from Toews to go before finishing her books, and I'm very sad to be near the end of this journey. But I am also incredibly fascinated to see what her book coming out this year - a return to memoir! - will be like. She has spent so much of writing recontextualizing her own life, and I'm so curious to see what she does when the framing of it all is removed. Anyways, it always gives me comfort to know one of the best writers alive grew up just an hour south from me. Thanks for everything, Miriam.
January 13, 2010
This was quite an amazing book. This (former Mennonite) gal is an excellent writer. In an unusual manner for a memoir, Miriam writes from her father's point of view; it took me a chapter or so to habitually think in the right frame of mind. When "he" writes about his state of mind (he was manic-depressive), it is actually Miriam writing what she surmised his state of mind might well have been. He was such a productive man in his manic phase, a 6th grade teacher, and yet when asked by his daughter the day before he took his own life what he was thinking of, his reply was two simple words- "Nothing accomplished". It is enough to make you weep...that inability to recognize and acknowledge all the rigorous efforts of your life. He had retired and his teaching job (where he poured ALL his manic energy) was gone. It was all downhill from there. Miriam Toews (pronounced Taves-long "a") writes a respectful tribute to her father; I was very moved. She portrays her mother as a remarkable woman whose natural ebullience and joy, not to mention patience and intelligence, carried the family's activities forward and helped to stabilize her father. This woman got several degrees when her children were older.
I also learned, (surprise, surprise!) that Miriam was the sad, mournful wife in the "Silent Light" movie about Mennonites in Mexico. The director saw her photo in one of her books and said that he wanted her for his movie. I was struck by her role as the silent, suffering wife and felt that the most moving scene in the whole movie was her breakdown on that (interminable) ride during the rainstorm. She cannot only write; she can act. Her great-grandfather migrated from Russia to Manitoba, Canada as a baby when large groups of Mennonites were given land to farm by Queen Victoria in the late 1800's. Her father's sister and family were missionaries to Mexico.
This author has won lots of writing awards already and we will probably see a lot more of her work.
I also learned, (surprise, surprise!) that Miriam was the sad, mournful wife in the "Silent Light" movie about Mennonites in Mexico. The director saw her photo in one of her books and said that he wanted her for his movie. I was struck by her role as the silent, suffering wife and felt that the most moving scene in the whole movie was her breakdown on that (interminable) ride during the rainstorm. She cannot only write; she can act. Her great-grandfather migrated from Russia to Manitoba, Canada as a baby when large groups of Mennonites were given land to farm by Queen Victoria in the late 1800's. Her father's sister and family were missionaries to Mexico.
This author has won lots of writing awards already and we will probably see a lot more of her work.
January 10, 2025
My mother died four years ago this week. She had Alzheimer’s disease. She was not an easy woman to deal with even before the dementia diagnosis. Her years in a care facility were filled with emotionally painful moments but she would have been horrified to know the image she fiercely tried to project for decades had been taken out of her control
Swing Low, Miriam Toews’ novelized biography of her father’s final days in a life spent struggling with bipolar disorder, is an often heart-wrenching reminder that we don’t know the pain and struggles faced by our parents. The day before he died, Mel Toews — a beloved schoolteacher forced to retire because of what turned out to be a series of strokes — summed up his life as “Nothing accomplished.” This book, told in the voice of her father in a journal format, is Miriam Toews’ attempt to counter that pronouncement.
It sketches out doubts and struggles most of us might recognize but often don't consider as contributing factors to the actions of people we love. I suspect that many readers will be able to see their own generational pain and experiences in these pages.
At one point, there is a line where Mel Toews recalls his mother’s drinking — a unspoken habit that was to be kept out of public acknowledgement in their small town: “Perhaps if I had known more about my mother’s past… I might have understood why she was the way she was.”
It’s also a reminder that the happy childhood untouched by traumas is far more fiction — or an attempt to “save face” — than reality.
Swing Low, Miriam Toews’ novelized biography of her father’s final days in a life spent struggling with bipolar disorder, is an often heart-wrenching reminder that we don’t know the pain and struggles faced by our parents. The day before he died, Mel Toews — a beloved schoolteacher forced to retire because of what turned out to be a series of strokes — summed up his life as “Nothing accomplished.” This book, told in the voice of her father in a journal format, is Miriam Toews’ attempt to counter that pronouncement.
It sketches out doubts and struggles most of us might recognize but often don't consider as contributing factors to the actions of people we love. I suspect that many readers will be able to see their own generational pain and experiences in these pages.
At one point, there is a line where Mel Toews recalls his mother’s drinking — a unspoken habit that was to be kept out of public acknowledgement in their small town: “Perhaps if I had known more about my mother’s past… I might have understood why she was the way she was.”
It’s also a reminder that the happy childhood untouched by traumas is far more fiction — or an attempt to “save face” — than reality.
April 29, 2021
I came across this book in the original version, written by Miriam Toews, a Canadian author. English is not my native language however I had no difficulty in understanding it and grasping all the emotions.
A very peculiar novel, I say novel even though it is written in the form of an autobiography.
It’s the daughter, Miriam Toews, who lends the voice to her father who committed suicide at age 62. By lending him her voice she tries to give a possible answer to his tragic death. Memories of a life marked by depression since youth however you can feel the commitment and the firm will that the protagonist puts into keeping his fears in check.
Does she find an answer? There is no answer. All the love of a daughter for a father, who struggled all his life, shines through the book.
Miriam Toews quotes, “There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors “.
A very peculiar novel, I say novel even though it is written in the form of an autobiography.
It’s the daughter, Miriam Toews, who lends the voice to her father who committed suicide at age 62. By lending him her voice she tries to give a possible answer to his tragic death. Memories of a life marked by depression since youth however you can feel the commitment and the firm will that the protagonist puts into keeping his fears in check.
Does she find an answer? There is no answer. All the love of a daughter for a father, who struggled all his life, shines through the book.
Miriam Toews quotes, “There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors “.
October 16, 2011
I won a copy of this book through a giveaway on Goodreads. At the time I received it, I couldn't remember having signed up for it, or why I might have, although after having read the back cover description it seemed fitting that I should win this. I too lost my father to suicide, and Miriam's writing mirrored a lot of what we went through, things my dad said (or didn't say). That same helplessness, the feeling of not being good enough, or not having done enough for the people in his life, was so familiar. And though we struggled to understand, just as Miriam and her family did, it was not enough to break through the devastating paralysis of depression.
This book was very moving. I don't know that I would have ever come across it had I not won it, but I will now share it with people who have experienced similar tragedies in their lives.
This book was very moving. I don't know that I would have ever come across it had I not won it, but I will now share it with people who have experienced similar tragedies in their lives.
March 23, 2017
I very much enjoy Toews' fiction, and whilst Swing Low, which is a fictionalised memoir of her father, is a step away from what I am used to in her work, I am pleased to report that it was rather wonderful. The approximation of her father's own voice feels both candid and believable. Very engrossing and darkly comic, thoughtful and moving, Swing Low is ultimately a very loving tribute.
October 4, 2011
Just fantastically sad and brilliant. I love Miriam Toews and I feel so awful for her family to have lost her father at a relatively young age (63-ish?) to suicide. She writes from his point of view after sorting through his many years of notes as an obsessive recorder and manic depressive. I could not put this down.
October 25, 2007
Miriam Toews memoir of her father's struggle with manic depression in a small Mennonite community is astounding. Written from her father's perspective the book is both beautiful and sad. I would recommend it to anyone.
March 8, 2016
Very, very sad but also very, very funny in a lot of ways. Well written, easy to read and very likable narrator. Didn't think I would like this book as much as I did--not usually a fan of Canadian lit but this was great.
August 26, 2016
Tender. Sad. Funny. Beautiful.
November 12, 2017
"There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors."
(loc. 2625)
(loc. 2625)
February 13, 2019
Maybe the saddest book I've ever read -- definitely up there -- but so good.
February 3, 2023
A strange book to read and to write about. It’s a loving exercise, as always with Toews, and I love the way she writes. I had a hard time figuring out how to read it– she’s writing from the perspective of her father, using facts and experiences she cobbled together from her own memories of him and from hearing about his life from other people, so it’s not clear what’s fact and what’s conjecture. Not a knock at all, just a thing I unexpectedly struggled with as I read. Overall I feel like this was a very ambitious, gutsy project, and she pulled it off well, and I hope it helped her.
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