Chekhov of the darp

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This article was published 30/12/2023 (981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pinching Zwieback, Mitchell Toews’ debut book of short stories, landed on my night table innocently enough, yet its searing emotional impact lingers. You can’t go wrong with a small-town setting, and Toews’ fictional darp (“village” in Mennonite Plautdietsch) yields great material.

This marvelous collection places Toews, a Manitoba Mennonite, in the elevated ranks of Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro. Pinching Zwieback could have been penned by Russian social realist Anton Chekhov if he had emigrated to the Canadian Prairies. But Alice Munro is Canada’s Chekhov. Can we have two? To minimize confusion, let’s dub Toews Chekhov of the darp.

This collection is Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women according to men and boys. I’ve been waiting for a writer to realize coming-of-age material from a male point of view; Toews exceeded expectations.

But what about W.O. Mitchell’s classic novel, Who Has Seen the Wind? It’s about a Prairie boy as well, but these stories have more teeth, more grit. And they are deeply layered and perhaps even autobiographical.

Toews spent more than 50 years in Steinbach, so he’s earned his small-town credentials. Every sentence in this collection rings true: the tight-knit social circles, the rigid class hierarchy, the heighted community expectations and the urgent need to transcend suffocating religious constraints.

Pinching Zwieback reads like a master class in the short story form. It’s character-driven fiction par excellence. As the 20 linked stories unfold, endearing characters re-appear and mature. For the purposes of brevity, this review will focus on the character Matthew Zehen, son of baker Hart Zehen.

Toews doesn’t spare these small-town people their daily grind. These characters’ lives aren’t sugar-coated. They are difficult, the lessons learned painful. But you can’t question their authenticity. If you want escapism, read Colleen Hoover’s treacly romances. Pinching Zwieback is gritty social realism.

In Fall From Grace, young Matthew Zehen, who fears heights, is nonetheless lured to the precarious roof of the curling rink by his friend Davey. Their mischief is to lob crabapples at passersby.

“I had experienced Davey’s leadership in the past — his time at the helm of our spring flood raft and our subsequent capsized result should have been enough to teach me a lesson, but I was slow to accept some truths about some friends.”

Matthew’s parents’ response to the boyish mischief reveals a compassionate bond forged on mutual understanding.

“Your father broke his ankle jumping off the roof of the skating rink into a snowbank with Uncle Shoesnick,” confesses Matthew’s mother, Trudy. Punishment averted, lesson learned — for now.

As the Matthew character matures, we arrive at the meat of these stories. In Rommdriewe, Matthew’s beloved parents have tragically developed into full-blown alcoholics. His father, Hart the baker, is hospitalized, and Matthew returns home alone to survey the damage.

Hart Zehen’s late-stage alcoholism is portrayed without sentimentality or false hope. Hart’s self-destructive lifestyle has pushed his son out of town and nothing can shift the reader’s attention from that painful emotional breach played out as a bedside vigil.

“I had all I needed to put it together. Abe and Dad pounding drinks and bullsh–ting in the shed. Her [Trudy, Matthew’s mother] drinking alone up in the house. She was drunk when she found them. Drunk in the hospital and making a scene. She sobered up as she waited for Dad to recover. Her better angels arrived then, together with remorse, shame and guilt. Then a bout of denial, and a trip home to get a drink. Just one.”

“Just one” — it’s pulled straight from the drunk’s lexicon, two words to summarize the alluring and enduring appeal of booze, the oblivion it provides and its firm hold on poor Trudy (and Hart). What else could Matthew do but leave town and forge a normal life elsewhere? It’s a tragic account of a family disease and the toll it exacts.

Bravo, Mitchell Toews. Pinching Zwieback is a brilliant debut. These may be “made-up” stories from the darp, but they read like field reports on the human condition.

Ex-urbanite Patricia Dawn Robertson makes her home in rural Saskatchewan. Her memoir, Media Brat, is forthcoming.