"In this lyrical memoir, Toews explores her writing career with storytelling that is at once propulsive and recursive, using her work as evidence of both her success and her inability to escape her past. It's bracing, candid reading." --The Los Angeles Times, "30 Must-Read Books for Summer"

"A haunting meditation on writing and death . . . Toews unearths layers of grief in between bouts of profane humor . . . At once modest and profound, this slim volume packs a major punch. Readers will be wowed." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Epistolary at turns, poetic at others, always keenly observant . . . A fine turn to nonfiction by a superbly accomplished storyteller." --Kirkus Reviews

"The Canadian novelist answers a complicated question - Why do you write? - with this memoir that meditates on memory, creation, and grief as she comes to terms with her sister's suicide. There's nothing simple about grief, or about Toews's writing." --The Boston Globe

"The psychological acuity, imagination, vividness, and wise humor that shape her novels . . . energize Toews' creatively structured, gorgeously written, and flat-out astonishing memoir . . . the reader is whirlwinded by experiences bizarre, comedic, tragic, and wondrous." --Booklist

"Miriam Toews writes hilariously about the saddest things . . . bringing her trademark wry humor to the page as she excavates her life as a writer, sister, daughter and friend." --Bookpage

"The first time [Toews] has written about her life in nonfiction. The book began when a reader asked her, 'Why do you write?' Each answer felt unsatisfactory, which led her to explore what compels her to write-and what a moving, emotional result." --Town & Country, "Must-Read Books of Summer"

"Toews is vulnerable with readers in a new way, unpacking her personal tragedies and piecing together the parts of them that led her to become an author. This memoir is an emotional rollercoaster that is certain to strike readers with its honesty." --Bookstr

"This small book is bursting with hilariousness and suffering and rage and also so much tenderness that the pages are practically flying off like paper-airplane love letters. I would have read another thousand chapters." --Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of SANDWICH and WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

"Why do I write? Miriam Toews's response to this impossible-to-answer prompt gives way to a haunting, tragi-comic, and incredibly moving inquiry into the landscapes and the people that define us; the parts of life that make no sense; and the things that, against all odds, keep us alive. A Truce That Is Not Peace is essential reading, a smart and wise companion for turbulent times." --Laura van den Berg, author of STATE OF PARADISE and THE THIRD HOTEL

"Everything written by Miriam Toews is giant-like, full of its own internal humor and strange weather, and A TRUCE THAT IS NOT PEACE is no exception. In trying to begin to answer why she writes, Toews ends by answering why she lives. A beautiful, breathtaking memoir." --Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Finalist THE MAN WHO COULD MOVE CLOUDS

"Piercing and distilled, a masterpiece in vulnerability and performance. A Truce That Is Not Peace is a stunner." --Hannah Pittard, author of WE ARE TOO MANY

"I loved A Truce That Is Not Peace. It is written with such fiery brilliance that the sadness it contains is transformed into an affirmation of Life in all its richness and variety. This remarkable book will live forever." --Celia Paul, painter and author of SELF-PORTRAIT

"Scorching . . . A wry, freewheeling novel of ideas that touches on the nature of evil, questions of free will, collective responsibility, cultural determinism, and, above all, forgiveness." --New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice on international bestseller WOMEN TALKING

"Miriam Toews is wickedly funny and fearlessly honest . . . She is an artist of escape; she always finds a way for her characters, trapped by circumstance, to liberate themselves." --The New Yorker on international bestseller WOMEN TALKING

"Ardent, hilarious, and moving." --NPR.org on FIGHT NIGHT

"In the crucible of [Miriam Toews'] genius, tears and laughter are ground into some magical elixir that seems like the essence of life." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post on ALL MY PUNY SORROWS