The Flying Troutmans

by Miriam Toews

Hattie's eleven year old niece calls her and tells her that she and her brother need help. Their mother, who has schizophrenia, can't take care of them any longer. Hattie comes home from Paris to help, her sister gets checked into a psyh ward, and then tells her kids she doesn't want to see them again. Hattie, not really knowing what to do, takes them on a road trip to find their father.

A sad book, but funny incidents keep you reading.

Quotes I like:

"We're all mostly white nerds with minor physical and emotional flaws that do not require medication but do brand us as losers in the bigger picture."

"Themes has become a talking machine. Maybe she was attempting to use up all the words that Min had left behind, taking whatever popped into her head, any thought, idea or fact, and transforming it into sound, noise, life. She was talking for two, in double time. When we were kids, Min would go for months without saying a word. Her muteness was her voice, her retreat was her attack. It was all upside down and disconcerting and it had made me nuts. I used to do the same thing that Thebes was doing now, blather away non-stop about anything that came to mind, and really it was only when I got to Paris and Marc told me that silence was golden, especially mine, that I realized how much I talked."

Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
You're not stylish or cool
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.
Be nicer to people.

"Thebes said that if she was eighteen and old enough to drink she'd start a book club."

"Another thing about our family, apparently, was that we were never able to define, precisely, or understand the charges being brought against us. Patterns of incomprehension."