{"id":1484,"date":"2009-03-09T16:04:03","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T15:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mcrrview.web.its.manchester.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=346"},"modified":"2016-01-24T15:13:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T14:13:13","slug":"the-flying-troutmans-miriam-toews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484","title":{"rendered":"The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Flying Troutmans<\/em> is a quest novel in which the narrator, dysfunctional Hattie, takes her dysfunctional niece Thebes, and dysfunctional nephew Logan, on a journey in a van across America in a bid to find their dysfunctional father Cherkis, because their dysfunctional mother Min, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of dysfunction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Actually it\u2019s not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And anyway, what modern family is not dysfunctional in one way or another? Despite the purple hair and addiction to fashioning over-sized cheques, Thebes is just a little girl. Despite the\u00a0moods and a penchant for carving poetic phrases into dashboards, Logan is just a teenage boy. Their affection for each other and for their ill mother is charming and heartwarming. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although it has the structure of a quest story, The Flying Troutmans<\/em> is really a story about running away. Hattie returns from France (the place she ran away to because Min’s world\u00a0scared her), because of a plea from Thebes for help. With Min in hospital wishing she was dead, Hattie realises with great shock that she now has Min\u2019s two children to look after. Rather than face this, she bundles them into the family\u2019s van and sets off to find the father that left them years ago and hasn\u2019t contacted them since so that she can leave them with him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the structure of the quest novel dictates, they find their treasure in the end, having met a few other wacky people and a dog along the way, and then everything\u2019s sort of all right. And that\u2019s where my problem with the book lies. It\u2019s a very nice read \u2013 witty, lively, full of intriguing characters \u2013 but the end is just too, well, too convenient, too forgiving. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toews hints at characters with complex personalities but I didn\u2019t feel they quite emerged \u2013 I\u2019d have liked everyone to be angrier, darker and much more disturbed, and for there to be an almighty bust-up at the end. It\u2019s as if Hattie, Thebes and Logan have been travelling in a vehicle that\u2019s been creaking and groaning under the pressure,\u00a0threatening that it might not reach its destination, that it might even kill them all on the way, and then when it finally arrives where X marks the spot, rather than exploding in a ball of fire, it just runs out of petrol. In short, it\u2019s a bit of an anti-climax.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having said all that, it is an enjoyable read which shows us that just because a family unit doesn\u2019t fit the 2.4 kids ideal, it can still be a family that works. If you want a comparison, it\u2019s a bit like Little Miss Sunshine but with more sunshine. It\u2019s just that I prefer thunder and lightning. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Flying Troutmans is a quest novel in which the narrator, dysfunctional Hattie, takes her dysfunctional niece Thebes, and dysfunctional nephew Logan, on a journey in a van across America in a bid to find their dysfunctional father Cherkis, because their dysfunctional mother Min, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. \u00a0 That\u2019s a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Flying Troutmans is a quest novel in which the narrator, dysfunctional Hattie, takes her dysfunctional niece Thebes, and dysfunctional nephew Logan, on a journey in a van across America in a bid to find their dysfunctional father Cherkis, because their dysfunctional mother Min, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. \u00a0 That\u2019s a lot […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-09T15:04:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-24T14:13:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484\",\"name\":\"The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-03-09T15:04:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-24T14:13:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1484#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"The Manchester Review\"},\"description\":\"The Manchester Review was founded in 2008 and is published by the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester. 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