No laughing matter

In her latest novel, Georgia Toews introduces readers to 23-year-old Virginia. Witty and a tad sardonic, Virginia is a budding comic living in Toronto. On paper she’s fairly successful, having made a name for herself in the local comedy scene. Her personal life, on the other hand, is anything but ideal.

Nearly a decade after losing her mother, Virginia is still coping with enormous grief. When her mother’s partner Dale suddenly suggests selling her mother’s house, she is confronted by painful memories of her final days in the home.

As they pack up the house together, and as Virginia prepares to visit her father and his soon-to-be-wife in Vancouver, she reflects on her relationship with the two men who helped raise her. Neither is exactly how she wishes them to be, but the intricacies of family are never perfect.

On top of her grief, Virginia finds herself grappling with the emotional aftermath of an attack on her bodily autonomy by a fellow, more established comedian. Will the experience keep her from pursuing her dream to move to Los Angeles?

At the centre of it all is Virginia’s complicated relationship with her roommate, Haley. One could even argue that their crumbling friendship is the novel’s main storyline. The two girls have been inseparable since high school, supporting each other through depression, loss, dating woes and hangovers. But now Virginia wonders if growing up has only led them to grow further and further apart.

Desperately clinging to what once was, and feeling guilty about wanting to abandon her friend for L.A., Virginia says: “I wanted to love each other easily, like a couple of gals in a tampon commercial.” But of course, the laughing friends in a tampon commercial are only actors. Their friendship is made up. Similarly, Virginia feels her attachment to Haley quickly becoming something she has to fake.

When she attends her father’s second (or rather, third) wedding (you’ll get it later), a chaotic mishap sending her further into a spiral. But, as Virginia says, sometimes “jokes write themselves.”

Through it all, Virginia finds solace in comedy. Reflecting on her first attempt at stand-up after her mother’s death she says: “People laughed, and it was such a relief after two years of people feeling bad for me.”

Twenty-somethings are especially likely to recognize bits (pun intended) of themselves in Toews’ messy yet endearing main character. She’s cynical but sensitive, and wonderfully “Zillenial” (Virginia would surely love Britney Spears’ I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, but in, like, an ironic way).

The daughter of adored CanLit author Miriam Toews and brother of Winnipeg author Owen Toews, Georgia Toews is a skilled novelist in her own right. Her debut novel Hey, Good Luck Out There, explores similarly difficult themes with gut-punching humour.

Raised in Winnipeg, Toews now lives in Toronto, where she writes for film and TV in addition to her novels.

Toews refuses to shy away from the taboo, touching on difficult topics such as the #MeToo movement, mental illness and identity politics through the conversations of her characters. Her writing feels authentic and very much of the time.

The novel’s title, Nobody Asked for This, is fitting given the numerous and strange heartbreaks Virginia experiences as the narrative unfolds. (It’s also perhaps a nod to the character’s self-deprecating inner voice as she tries to write her comedy.)

Yet with its narrative style that mimics the speech of a young adult who grew up on the internet, and its comedic delivery of difficult events, perhaps Nobody Asked for This isn’t what today’s readers asked for, but what they need.

And if not, well, “that’s showbiz, baby.”

Jessie Taylor is a poet and editor with a master of arts degree in cultural studies from the University of Winnipeg.