Great Reads for Great Readers

 

Fight Night, by Miriam Toews.

 

            9 year-old Swiv (an abbreviation never explained) lives with her actress mother in Toronto.  Swiv’s Grandma has recently come to live with them too, which is handy because Swiv has recently been expelled from school for being recalcitrant, incorrigible and impossible in the classroom.  Fair enough.  The break will do everyone good – you know:  clear the air, calm the waters (for her teachers), that kind of thing, the only disadvantage being that Grandma has a severe heart condition (Swiv is the custodian of Grandma’s myriad medications:  she knows to the minute what should be taken when), and Swiv’s mum is rehearsing for a stage play, even though she is hugely pregnant.  Life and its problems has become ‘very complex’ to say the least and, as part of a grandmotherly stab at home-schooling, Swiv has been instructed to write a daily letter to her absent dad.  According to mum and Grandma, he is off fighting as a guerrilla for some obscure foreign cause, so he must be kept up to date with news from home.

            And that is the heart and soul of this lovely story – Swiv’s daily version of life and love with the two most important women in her life – mum, who is on a short fuse a lot of the time – not good in Swiv’s opinion for Gord, the mysterious occupant of mum’s womb – Swiv is really looking forward to being a sister – and Grandma, unfailingly optimistic despite her many health problems.  It has to be said that daily life with Grandma is never dull, from watching their favourite basketball team on TV to meeting up with Grandma’s old friends (and they really are old!), to deciding to take a trip to Fresno, California, ‘The Raisin Capital of the World!’ to visit Lou and Ken, two of Grandma’s many nephews, whom Swiv is shocked to find are a couple of old Hippies with long hair.  Lou prefers to walk everywhere – it clears his head – and Ken has  a girlfriend called Jude who likes oil massages with Ken,  an incomprehensible reason for using oil in Swiv’s opinion;  regardless, they are both thrilled to see their beloved aunt and make their visitors hugely welcome – until a visit to Grandma’s friends for lunch at a local rest home takes a very serious turn, and their time in the Raisin Capital of the World is cut short because Grandma decided that she could still do a high kick for her friends – with predictably disastrous results.

            Swiv’s letters to her dad (and we find out the real reason for his absence) become a marvellous chronicle of familial love, secrets laid bare, and a hymn of praise for humour, resilience and resistance in the face of adversity:  Swiv is unforgettable and it’s a shame she is confined to just one book.  SIX STARS.