Mitchell Toews's Blog, page 2

Greenwich Village Vibe in the East Reserve

Minus the scuttling of rats and absent Blues Traveler, Joni Mitchell, George Carlin, Hettie Jones, and the Reverend Bob Dylan, Steinbach’s The Public Brewhouse and Gallery did a strong impression of one of the halcyon NYC music-drinks-spoken word shrines of the Sixties, Mennist style. https://thepublicbrewhouseandgallery.ca/

I felt during this evening the “crackle of the universe,” to quote William Burroughs, who—if he was a Mennonite, wasn’t very good at it. Or was maybe extremely good at it. Opinions vary. (He prooooooobably was not a Mennonite. Possibly a Lutheran.)

Mennonites were on tap because it was a FUNDRAISER for the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum, arranged by departing executive Nathan Dyck. A fine vocalist, as it turns out—no great surprise as so many Mennonites are good singers. It’s true, scientific, even. Ask any CSNY (Cornie Stoesz or Neufeld, Yasch). https://mennoniteheritagevillage.com/

Literati Erin Koop Unger and Andrew Unger led off with a travelogue deep dive into the Mennonite enclave that was the Vistula Delta in northern Poland. Their visit to the region generated a fascinating study in Mennonite history from the time when many Anabaptists were “encouraged” to leave the Lowlands of western Europe and found a home in G’dansk, a place of flood and relative religious tolerance. https://www.mennotoba.com/ https://andrewunger.com/

Paul Bergman entertained with music in two rhythmic, jazzy, silky sets that offset the historical mood and gave us some stardust for our beer. https://paulbergmanmusic.com/

I chimed in with some historical factoids from Ralph Friesen’s “Prosperity Ever Depression Never” and other other pub-style fare. I told two extemporaneous stories about personal experiences at the Tourist Hotel, but I think those went unrecorded. Here’s my written text:

I’ll begin by giving you some historical context for the Tourist Hotel, and its alehouse, the likes of which first began in Roman Britain, and according to Wikipedia, one of the most longstanding of which is “Sean’s Bar, in the medieval town of Athlone in the Republic of Ireland… the oldest pub in Europe, dating back to 900 AD.”

More recently, here’s a reading from “Prosperity Ever Depression Never” by Ralph Friesen, Pages 49-50:

[…] (“On Main Street, next to Abraham A. Toews Five Cents to One Dollar store) was the Steinbach Hotel. The hotel, beer parlour included, was owned and operated by Henry Coote, who grew up on a Mennonite farm as one of thousands of British “home children” sent to Canada because their families were too poor to care for them. Immediately next door was another hotel, the Tourist Hotel, built in 1927 by the Peter B. Peters family… descendants of Jacob Peters who had led the Bergthal Colony Mennonites in the 1874 immigration. In 1931… the Peters family bought (Coote’s Steinbach) hotel… running both the Tourist and the Steinbach hotels… In 1934… the Peters family collaborated with Hugh McDiarmid, a retired RCMP officer to apply for their (contentious beer parlour) licence, and this strategy worked…Steinbach remained “wet” for… decades.”

and from Barry Dyck, a Retired Executive Director of the Mennonite Heritage Village, in an article titled, “A Look Back at Steinbach’s former Tourist Hotel:

[…] “The Tourist Hotel… (did business) on Steinbach’s Main Street from 1928 to 1976… In 1930 it expanded to include a dining room and a “men-only” Beer Parlour. The parlour was not without controversy, however, and efforts were made to close it. In 1950 Steinbach voted for the prohibition of liquor sales. However, a separate vote of 398 to 214 allowed the Tourist Hotel beer parlour to stay open under a grandfather clause.”

And now, my own story about spending a night at the Tourist Hotel. “So, in January of 1969, when I was fourteen… ”

~ ~ ~

Next, to bring you to the wide world of bars and beer and drinking establishments—maybe some a bit different than The Public and the Tourist Hotel—here’s a fictional story about another public house. Imagine a saloon in the Irish village of Nobber (where one of my sons-in-law was born), a dimly-lit place dedicated to the sale and consumption of liquor, where they might have a pool table or a jukebox (perhaps playing “Mama Told Me Not to Come” by Randy Newman) and maybe some pickled eggs in a large jar made unappetizing by the presence of indistinct organic flotsam suspended in the yellowed vinegar… as if someone shook out a dusty rag into it. We enter the establishment near closing time when the barkeep and three male customers are the only occupants... (pensive music in background)

Photo: Erin Koop Unger

One Night at Keogan’s

“If you drinks in this bar, you buys me a pint. Or else.”

The puffy face is inches away. Breath as putrid as blood sausage left out in the sun. A closed fist wavers in the smoky air like a partly deflated balloon. Eyes bleary, he gathers me close in his unfocused gaze. A quivering tic hikes up one of his eyebrows involuntarily. Up. Down. Up-Up-Down.

“Or else, what?” I ask, although I have a pretty good idea.

The barwoman, at the far side of the near-empty room, plants a dart in the cork board with a thud. She glances at us, then her watch, then the dart board.

He peers at me. Up. Down. Up-Up-Down.

“Or else, it’s a fight,” my new Tuesday night friend replies after a pause, one hand now resting on my shoulder like a sack of wet buckwheat.

I sip from my black foamy glassful and carefully rotate the coaster a quarter turn clockwise.

“Will there be, ahmm, kicking in this fight—you know—below the belt?”

He looks down at me, askance. Slit eyes widen for a moment to show red rims. He clears his throat.

“Nah, little fella,” he says, an unsteady hand reaching over to turn the coaster back to where it was. “I’m allergic to nuts.”

I toss a glance at the bartender, who has paused her dart practice. “I see… What about eye gouging?” I query, holding up a fist with an upraised thumb.

“Nahr,” he rumbles after a moment of contemplation, lifting one cheek for a brief respite from the stool, then gently patting my thumb down with a leathery palm. “None of that. Not on my watch… ”

I stare into the mirror behind the bar. A forgotten cigarette smoulders in front of my gruff neighbour and adjacent to that, the head of a sleeping mate lies cradled in woolly arms folded on the bar top. A cluster of crushed corpses rests row on row in the ashtray.

“How about,” I continue, “a jab to the opponent’s Adam’s apple?” I say this while gingerly extending my left hand towards his throat, in example.

He gives me a stern appraisal. “Not to worry, fella, not by any of the muckers here at Keogan’s!”

I finish my draught. The tall, wan barwoman pulls her darts from the board and I catch her eye, motioning to the cash register that sits like a miniature shrine at the head of the bar. Crumpled wad in hand, I peel a tenner and crease it lengthwise down the middle with my thumbnail. With a faint smile, I stand the note on end beside my empty glass, point and say, “For mine, and one for him, please,” to the now-smiling barmaid.

“Well, then, my mighty friend… ” I say to the burly lad beside me who gives me one last squinting up-and-down.

“In that event, I must withdraw—you see, those are all my best fight moves!”

~ ~ ~

Keogan’s Bar is a place you may have visited or might want to, just for the experience. In the case of the Tourist Hotel Beverage Room, you could have visited, as long as you were not a woman. Neither could women tend bar there—of the hundreds of thousands of watery draft beer pulled in Steinbach, none of them were drawn by a female hand. Steinbach was not the only one to have that gender bias; it was relatively common in places as far-removed as Warman, Sask., Winnipeg Beach, and The Terminal Club in Vancouver. In the Sixties, a small glass of beer was—by Manitoba Provincial law—15-cents in a men’s only beer parlour and 25-cents in a beverage room that served women. In 1978, I had a beer with a female co-worker at a soccer-mad tavern in Toronto where women were admitted but not served. This was explained to us and I bought two draft and gave her one of them, as our waiter suggested. (Apparently, gifts were allowed.) So in keeping with these thoughts, and to put you in a fighting mood before I tell my next story, here is a poem by Danielle Coffyn:

If Adam Picked The Apple

There would be a parade,
a celebration,
a holiday to commemorate
the day he sought enlightenment.
We would not speak of
temptation by the devil, rather,
we would laud Adam’s curiosity,
his desire for adventure
and knowing.
We would feast
on apple-inspired fare:
tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.
There would be plays and songs
reenacting his courage.

But it was Eve who grew bored,
weary of her captivity in Eden.
And a woman’s desire
for freedom is rarely a cause
for celebration.

~ ~ ~

Finally, here’s a story I also experienced first-hand, which might be called Können Frauen hier kein Bier kaufen???

The Real (Baked) Goods

Here it is, from Barkman Avenue to your countertop. Bake with joy.

Zwieback Recipe

From Steinbach Bakery Ltd., kitchen-tested by Doug Toews, Wpg., Man.

20 Zwieback buns.

NOTE: Much better results for frozen/reheated buns when produced with canola
oil. The original recipe calls for 1/3 – 1/2 cup butter or lard for buns you
plan to eat fresh and not freeze.

Ingredients.

-1/2 cup water for proofing the yeast. (Optional: use leftover potato-boiling
water. The bakery did not use that but it is a traditional way to make
Zwieback. Why waste water?)

2 cups whole milk1/4 cup canola oilmelted butter for brushing the buns after baking1-1/2 to 2 tsp. salt (to taste)3 to 4 tbsp. sugar (to taste)1 tbsp yeast – 2 packages4-1/2 – 5-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Preparation.

Mix 3 cups of flour with the yeast and then add the water and other
ingredients. Mix well. Then work in the rest of the flour as needed and knead
for 10 minutes. A slow first rise of 1 to 1-1/4 hours will give a better-
tasting bun. Punch down and let rest 10 minutes. Pinch into ball and form the
buns. A little water (just a dab) on top of the base helps keep the top on.
Cover with heavy plastic or wax paper (helps keep the tops on) and let rise
for 20 to 30 minutes. Bake at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes. Centre rack or
slightly above centre to prevent the bun bottoms from being overdone.
Optionally brush or rub with butter when just cool enough to handle.

How to Win Friends & Influence AI

What does your AI Overview say?

Here’s mine:

AI Overview

(Beep… boop, whirl, crackle!)

Mitchell Toews is a Manitoba-based fiction writer whose debut short story collection, Pinching Zwieback, was published in October 2023: 

Background Toews grew up in Steinbach, Manitoba, in his parents’ Mennonite bakery. He’s been published in over 125 literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. He’s also been a finalist in several major contests and prizes. Pinching Zwieback Toews’s debut collection is a blend of memory, fable, and trauma that explores life experiences in the fictional Mennonite prairie town of “Hartplatz”. The book has been well-reviewed, appeared on several local bestseller lists, and is being discussed in book clubs. Other work Toews is currently working on a second collection of short stories and a novel. He’s also collaborating with Phil Hossack on an ekphrastic prose/photographic art book. Engagement Toews reads at libraries, bookstores, and open mics, and also leads a workshop called “Writing Your Culture”. You can find him on:Mitchellaneous.com: His blog for updates, news, and other information Facebook: His Facebook page Instagram: His Instagram account Threads: His Threads accountBluesky: His Bluesky account

So that’s it, then? A writer, a Manitoban. No mention of the rest of my life, including living in Chilliwack, my 47-year marriage to Jan, our kids and grandkids (who will change the world, if they have not already), starting and running a manufacturing business, working in advertising for 20 years and being an active sort… out cursing and getting bruised and exhibiting “warning track power” no matter which sport—a trait that includes a highly selective memory when it comes to skills, courage, and accomplishments. (“Still,” I pout, “at least I always got my uniform dirty.”)

I think AI is right to focus on what it has—I use the internet primarily to promote my writing because, dammmit Jim, that’s just what a writer has to do these days!

I am en grade: AI may suddenly turn on me. Why? Well, I often make fun of the AI that runs my daughter’s refrigerator (“Here’s today’s weather for Zanzibar” it says, after I hack the geo-locator in the settings—hee-hee!). I also throw shade at her snooty 3D printer, and my n’er-do-well regular printer (whom I call “O, Brother, where for art thou?” when it fails to print). These bad relationships may colour AI’s appraisal of me. I am courting AI revenge! I need to let AI feel more seen, be more inclusive to AI, and give them/they/it the benefit of my human capacity to be empathetic, even if they are incapable of emotions. (Does AI get my “O, Brother… ” joke? I think it does, on an intellectual level. Does it laugh? Is AI ticklish? Does AI have a weakness for old Carol Burnett Show vids?)

My other question is, “Has AI read my book? Has AI read all of my published work? Does AI like my Menno-Grit style or are they/is it more inclined towards Sci-fi or Fantasy? (I do get a kind of D&D vibe off of AI, don’t you?)

Anyway, do a search for “AI Overview Your Name” and see what my daughter’s refrigerator thinks of you, you Zanzibarian, you.

Coming Portage & Main Attractions

Winnipeg Free Press/McNally Robinson Book Club

With thanks to At Bay Press, The Winnipeg Free Press, and McNally Robinson Booksellers!

Book Club

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/book-club

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Ambition

What to save in an upside-down world? What to throw away?

I have a copy of Alice Munro’s Runaway, the Giller Prize Winner (Penguin Canada, 2004) on a knick-knack shelf in my workshop. It’s there with a rotating accumulation of various symbolic items from my life.

Her book is included to remind me about hard work, perseverance, and dedication to craft. Attributes I—many of us—thought Alice Munro exemplified before the recent news of her awful choices.

I will keep a copy of Munro’s book on the shelf for those positive, aspirational traits. She had them, despite all else. She definitely did.

Now, though, in light of her (and others’) apparent complicity in child abuse, I might also have this book on hand to remind me of the negative power of ambition. Artists and their allies need guardrails against ambition, vanity, and the endless threat of our own self-interest. It is easy to fall into pity: our individual fight is the hardest, the bias against our cohort is the worst, our need to succeed and our art is more important to us than anything. Grievance can be blinding, made worse by the confusing, subjective nature of our business; of the creative economy.

Besides, we don’t know if author Munro’s descent was due to a mental disorder. Or maybe it was an all too common human stumble—a slow, sliding apprehension… The sum of a long string of micro rationalizations? I think a case can be made—and has been made by those with first-hand experience—that Alice Munro was also a victim, sideswiped into complicity by a skilled and omnivorous abuser.

I don’t have those answers. The world may never know. What I do know is that the malevolence of too much ambition is something that has always been ready to ambush me. It wants to overtake me and run away with my goodness and leave behind only success (if that), which might be as disappointing and bleak as Mr. Jamieson’s “dim and sheeted body…shrinking every day…” (Runaway, page 5.)

We’re All Just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires…”

Originally posted on a friend’s Facebook page. The italic comments are my subsequent additions. (Cooler heads prevailing? Maybe…)

Who looks out for low-income Canadians? The lawmakers? Okay, but aren’t they mostly wealthy individuals, some for many generations?

If not most, then many. After all, their salary, benefits, celebrity, and pension are enough to be financially attractive to most Canadians.

Aren’t many others “first-generation wealthy” who might see their elected membership in Parliament (and other institutions) as a handy, effective means of wealth generation and preservation? A few might be from lower income cohorts but far more (a statistical majority, in fact) are likely to be extremely rich; elites who may take the attitude that, “if the poor don’t like it, they should have made more money!”

“Extremely rich” is hyperbolic, but compared to those of average income and debt loads (who lack the opportunity to earn income after their public political life), many elected officials are financially well-off.

All those elected officials who complain that government pharmaceutical programs would be “socialist” activities are likely wealthy (and so do not fully appreciate the burden of pharmaceutical costs), likely don’t see “the poor” as a significant voting block, and are probably recipients of MP (or other gov’t position) pharma, dental, travel, etc. care plans.

The “Falk in our stars” are those who, as members of Parliament or Provincial Legislatures have a Pharma plan as part of their government pay package. If it disgusts him to the point of public displays of angry bluster, (and if I could) I would gladly take over TF’s coverage. I won’t vote for him as a result (that transaction would be illegal), but I will feel better about his election rhetoric and he will be able to point to his noble intent and superior moral character.

A better remedy than my angry rant might be to go back and read “The Grapes of Wrath” again.

Festival Abstract

Speaking only for myself, it is rewarding (and nerve-wracking) to attend literary meetings. Gathering writers, published authors, publishers, readers, editors, librarians, booksellers, critics, literary academics, and educators, these meetings can take many forms, from a coffee shop tête-à-tête, a living room get-together, a workshop, or a formal literary festival.

Here is a summary of my experiences based on my professional journey and what I can offer as a literary speaker, panelist, or workshop presenter for literary events.

Mitchell Toews: A Grass Roots POV

Background in advertising and corporate communications. Persuasion, copywriting, ad copy, marcom: a perspective on the differences and the similarities vis à vis creative writing and fiction. Writing practice grounded in Canada, small towns, the prairies, the boreal, and the Canadian Mennonite community.Bootstrap artistic journey: shifting from corporate and marketing communications to creative writing—keeping the good, identifying the irrelevant (and the problematic).Returning to early ambitions to write professionally and facing the difficulties of an “Act II” existence. Overcoming ageism and the bias against older emerging writers in CanLit: staying positive and stoic in a challenging environment and resisting the slide into victimhood. Journeyman’s approach: over 800 submissions to the “slush piles” of literary periodicals, contests, and anthologies. (With over 120 resultant publications.)Self-promotion within the context of the small press and independent (non-agented) landscape within Canadian literature. The importance of independent bookstores, libraries, and museums.The Open Mic for writers: more than just a chance to hang out with musicians. Book launches, readings, panel discussions, and book club author nights. Workshops and critique groups. Working with Writers in Residence.Working with freelance editors, press editors, publishers, and publicists. Social Media vs. “Shut up and write.”Acquiring blurbs and reviews. Literary and Arts organizations: Guilds, Unions, Councils. Grant writing. Keep it short.Professional development for the rural writer. Creating a personalized workshop topic: seeing your strength. (Mine is “Writing your Culture.”)Paying it forward: building your allyhood, being an artistic comrade.AI: the dog that bites its owner.Wealth: the unspoken truth. Thoughts on “tarnishment” and the personal authorial voice.

Anthologies

When I began submitting stories to lit mags in 2016, I noticed a few calls for submissions to anthologies. Some contests published print anthologies of the longlisted stories. Other anthologies were not open to submissions. Instead, they contained stories the editors had hand-picked for their collection.

I wondered if my work would ever be good enough to submit to an anthology, never mind have a story invited for inclusion.

As these things go, there are varying levels of anthologies. My hardcover Norton Anthology text in 1974 at the University of Victoria would be one level. I did not aim quite that high, but I did offer my work to a few and over time, others asked to include stories I had written.

My stories (18 in total) have been in 16 anthologies. I am not as active in pursuing them as I was, but I still greatly respect the form and enjoy being included in an eclectic and far-flung grouping of authors.

Here’s my printed anthology publication list, to date:

Best of Fiction on the Web: 1976-2017, 2017, U.K.
The Machinery: Fauna, 2017, India
Just Words Vol. 2, 2018, Canada
The Immigrants, 2018, U.S.
We Refugees, 2019, U.S.
The Best Short Stories from the MOON, 2019, U.S.
A Fork in the Road, 2020, U.S.
Just Voices, 2020, Canada
Anthology of Short Stories Summer 2021, 2021, U.K.
This Will Only Take a Minute, 2022, Canada
Small Shifts: Short Stories of Fantastical Transformation, 2022, Canada
Framework of the Human Body, 2022, Canada
I Used to be an Animal Lover, 2023, Australia
Hardboiled and Loaded with Sin, 2023, U.S.
Prine Primed, 2024, U.S.
Nona Heaslip (Exile) Best Canadian Short Stories, 2024 (forthcoming), Canada

I hope to continue to contribute to excellent collections like these. Every time I work with an editor, I find I improve as a writer and my work benefits with some lustre or refinement that it might have otherwise missed.

I have been nominated four times for the renowned Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses Anthology but so far, no room under that prestigious umbrella for me—so there’s still a lot to aspire to.

In Praise of Contradictory Characters

Humans evolved as viable beings in part through our ability to maximize our senses as a whole. This is unlike many other creatures with specialized areas of excellence: a hummingbird’s flight or an eagle’s vision, for example. We homo sapiens have not been able to supercharge any single sense but have created a life-giving skill of summarization. We’ve been able to condense all of our senses to create almost instantaneous and frequently accurate compound impressions that let us make fast decisions.

When walking in the woods, the leaf-muffled sound of something above makes us instinctively glance in that direction, lower our centre of gravity, and rely on our unconsciously gathered, short-term knowledge of our immediate surroundings to guide us and avoid a falling branch.

These intuitive, “always on” survival instincts are given to us before we are born; these powers are in our genes and the DNA that plots our growth.

We combine all available data to create almost prescient responses to situations and we do it thousands of times each day, even while we sleep. Each second, we are automatically collecting, sorting, saving, discarding and responding—or preparing a response—to the myriad sources of input we insatiably seek to acquire.

Relentless and ruthless, we categorize and make assumptions as a necessary by-product of our rapid-fire process of collect-examine-act. It works! 750-pound sabre tooth felines are extinct but 122-pound soccer moms wearing spandex leggings and hot pink tank tops jog with their stroller-strapped infants through modern society’s statistical valley of death: roadside urban environments.

We depend on our ability to rapidly rate & discern danger or safe haven. This savant-like skill has made our population grow to the point where we have become our own worst enemies.

This island of genius, summarization, extends to our art as well. In fiction, we create characters whose true selves are, to the observant reader, readily visible. Seemingly stereotypical. However, our “bad guys” may at first appear as great dads, loving boyfriends, fearless advocates of the downtrodden, or otherwise trustworthy sorts. And so they may be, until they, like the tree branch, suddenly SNAP!

Like we somehow knew they would.

Bait and switch. Hidden foreshadowing. On Star Trek, the never-seen-before crew member who is featured in the opening segment of the show as a loyal but inconsequential player sets off alarms in our sensory array. We KNOW this character is shown for a reason. This herring with a sunburn is going to: a.) die horribly, b.) be transformed into some unstoppable alien predator, or c.) shapeshift into a lookalike for Kirk, Spock, Bones, or Scotty. The music, dialogue, the point in the story arc, and a dozen other micro telltales (a signature Nimoy eyebrow lift perhaps) give us a sense of certainty that all that remains to discover is the skill with which this yarn is unravelled. We grab a bowl of sugary cereal at the scene break and hurry back when the familiar “back-from-commercial” music entreats us to return and see if maybe there could be some knot in the plot we did not foresee.

Generally, the only way to fool us and our all-seeing assessment tools is to introduce some hitherto unknown, unknowable factor: a force field, a distant planet’s illogical cultural more, or a character flaw for which NO CLUES were ever offered. Shame, screenwriter, for giving us insufficient data. How un-Hitchcock of you! How Bradburyless!

But wait! Is there shame in this lack of situational prep work by the author? Must all characters wear either the white stetson or the black? Is it binary? God and the Devil? Must we be drawn always into our heroic and melodramatic roots over and over again? Can’t there be confusion? Contradiction?

#

In my “reads like a novel” collection of short stories, “Pinching Zwieback” (At Bay Press, 2023) there is one recurrent character who is, one could say, clearly contradictory. In her first appearance, “Justy” is a stoic, “old-soul” kind of young mom, whose love and earnest devotion for her family is both beautiful and beguiling. When I read this story to audiences, I can feel her charm and purity making them love her and want her to succeed. So do I.

In the next installment, about mid-way through the collection, we meet her again but this time Justy is the world-worn mother of teenagers in a fish-bowl small town where every means of escape has proven futile. This older Justy smokes cigarettes, drinks liquor, and otherwise spits on male Mennonite overreach into her life. The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon showcases her willingness to confront her male antagonist with laser beam accuracy and we find in her a beacon of hope for the lowly. (A group in which she finds herself, despite her powerful character.) Echoing a figurative page from another story in the book (Breezy) she reminds us of the message found in one of my favourite short stories: “Forgive the weak for they are always fighting.” —Layne Coleman wrote in “Tony Nappo Ruined My Life” (Exile V45.2, in which this story was named the $15K winner of the “Best Canadian Short Fiction.”)

Justy’s final appearance shows us the caustic effect of sorrow, self-pity, and surrender. Human frailty is the currency and Justy is no more the bright, heroic young mother willing to take on any burden and defy all odds against her. Nor is she still the cynical but bold and unyielding knight Perceval; older but still focused on her Holy Grail, though we might see in her some flickering signs of weariness and a quiet desire to set herself apart from the constant meanness.

At the end of Grittiness, we are left imagining her in growing despair, abiding a life among the paltry and the unbecoming. She remains unseen until at last, in Rommdriewe, she reappears finally and is forever seen as broken. The defilement of her earlier selves is complete.

The message in Rommdriewe is, as my writer friend Brian Hughes of Winnipeg said during a critique session of this story, “to not hate the poisoned victim—rather, hate the poison.” Justy is cruelly denied this kindness. In Rommdriewe, her son (now a man) and his aging father come to terms with their fractious relationship. Justy is left outside of this treaty, with only the smallest of hopes left for her to save herself and become the pure girl-woman-truth seeker she once was.

Justy is the undisputed hero of the book and yet she is denied heroic status. She becomes the sin-eater for the others, sacrificing herself to show them how honour and defiance (Trotz) and courage can be used to survive. Even as she slips over the icy edge with little Matt at the end of Fast and Steep, we know we’ll not see her again except as the defamed sin-eater who subtly and without troubling us, gives her soul in exchange for others.

In the end, maybe Justy is the opposite of a contradictory character. Perhaps, somehow, she becomes the hero made perfect, without seeking perfection. Justy is no faux male Jesus vainly declaring anguish while knowing his everlasting fate is secure. No, Justy’s stoicism is as pure and giving as her motherly love and her endlessly heroic trotzijch mettle in the face of all adversity against her loved ones.

In this river of love flowing uphill, Justy remains true to her innermost self and is in this way the ultimate contradictory character.