It’s a testament to the entertaining voice, emotional acuity and quick pacing of “All My Puny Sorrows” that it doesn’t become evident until about two-thirds of the way through how slight the plot is: Yoli has traveled to Winnipeg from her home in Toronto because her sister, Elfrieda, a brilliant and successful classical pianist, has - not for the first time - attempted suicide.

In fact, spending time in the company of Yoli, a 40-something woman alternately busy with the work of caring for various family members and screwing up her own life, was the main reason I loved the book.

The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?’ ”įor the most part, I agree with Messud, yet as I devoured Miriam Toews’s latest novel, “All My Puny Sorrows,” I thought that I’d very much like to befriend the main character. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. “If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. “For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that?” Messud responded. In a 2013 exchange that’s become famous in literary circles, the novelist Claire Messud took to task an interviewer at Publishers Weekly who observed that she - the interviewer - wouldn’t want to be friends with the protagonist of Messud’s most recent novel and asked if Messud herself felt the same way.

All my puny sorrows book summary