Women Talking - Miriam Toews

I enjoyed this book, but it didn't leave an overwhelming impression on me, unfortunately. I was expecting it to pack more of a punch, given the title, but it wasn't quite what I expected. The premise of the novel is that a colony of women in Bolivia, the Mennonite women, have found themselves subject to attacks over the past two years. Over one hundred women and young girls, (one mentioned is a toddler) have been waking up sore and disoriented, and believe that they have been attacked by demons in the night, as punishment for their sins. The men of the colony have supported these beliefs and encouraged the consensus that these claims are "wild female imagination". These real events took place between 2005 and 2009, which is shockingly recent.

As it turns out, the women have in fact been drugged with a natural substance which has anaesthetic effects - belladonna - and raped by the men in their own community. As a remote and very religious colony, the women are somewhat naïve to the reality of the attacks which are in some cases being perpetrated by their own relatives. They are all illiterate and unable to speak the language of the country they live in, not to mention being unaware of the world outside the colony. This historical background is given at the beginning of the novel, as an exposition to the rest of the book. Although based on real events, the novel is the author's imagined response of the women once they discover the truth about the attacks which have left them sore, bleeding and completely unaware of what has happened.

The novel is split into small sections, and covers the events of one day. The sections are:

- Before the Meeting

- Minutes of the Women Talking
- At Night, Between Meetings

- Minutes of the Women Talking

- After the Meeting

The narrator of the novel, and the only male character we hear from in the novel, August Epp, is taking minutes of the women discussing their options. Eight women, spanning three generations, gather in a hayloft to conduct their secret meeting, with three possible outcomes: they can do nothing, they can stay and fight, or they can leave. But they only have two days to make their decision, as the men of the colony have gone to the city to bail out the eight who were discovered to be the repeated attackers. The discovery was made when one of the women hid and watched an attack taking place, and with the help of another managed to extract the names of the other perpetrators. During the minutes of the women talking, Toews plays with wit, family dynamic, and fear, as the women have never know life outside the colony and wonder if they will survive without the men. 

The language is slightly problematic in this novel as in many places it is very simplistic, whilst in other passages being overly eloquent and completely unrealistic as the women's words. After researching a little into the Mennonite colony, I believe that the women spoke only in low German, with no grasp of the Spanish language, but of course the novel is written in English. Due to this, and the fictitious nature of the minutes of the women talking, the prose is naturally only a representation of Toews' imagined conversation between the women. Yet, considering these women were illiterate, the author has not made their conversation very believable.

This novel is pretty short, only around 200 pages, and is a quick read to get through. I would have preferred that it was either slightly longer and went into more depth, or that it was more hard-hitting for its short length. I enjoyed it, but it didn't leave me feeling overwhelmed! I'd say that I do recommend it as it brought to light these real events which I was previously ignorant to, and I have since learned more about the historical background of the novel. It's only a short read so a day or two would be enough to get through it!