a complicated kindness, by Miriam Toews, 2004, Vintage Canada (Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto)

A Teenager in a Mennonite Community

This kindness is definitely complicated! Miriam Toews, in first person narrative, describes the life of a teenage girl in a Canadian Mennonite community.

Please don’t assume all Canadian Mennonite communities are like this one. It’s not at all the same as the small prairie town that my mother grew up in, which is largely composed of Mennonites.

A Bit of History

The Mennonites are a people group with an interesting history. Basically, they are followers of Menno Simons, who, in 1536 broke away from the Catholic church during the Protestant Reformation. He lived in Friesland, an area around the border of Holland and Germany. The Mennonites later migrated to Russia (now Ukraine), and later escaped as refugees to Canada and other parts of North and South America.

Canada has many Mennonite communities, and churches. The different communities have evolved in various ways–some are very strict in resisting change, while others embrace change just like any other Christian group.

The Mouth is a Power-hungry Cultish Leader

a complicated kindness depicts a small prairie community dominated by one cultish leader of their one Mennonite church. This man, who the main character Nomi Nickel calls The Mouth, controls the people of the town. At least so it appears.

The book reads like a diary written by Nomi. We learn from it that although The Mouth manages to control much of what goes on, he cannot control people’s hearts and minds. Rather than this cultish control creating a peaceful community isolated from the rest of the world, it rips apart families and hearts and lives.

I noticed years ago that deception is most effective when mixed with truth. That’s how people get caught up in cults. Lured in by truth and goodness, they find themselves entrapped by power-hungry leaders. The Mouth is this kind of a leader. Please know that not all Mennonite groups or churches have this type of leaders. Menno Simons did not start a cult.

Underneath it all Lies a Complicated Kindness

Nomi, as a teen, realizes and resents the trap she lives in. Her dream is to escape to New York. However, as her teen years progress through the depressing gradual loss of everything meaningful to her, she also realizes the undercurrent of a complicated kindness that also exists here. Maybe she’ll stay after all.

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