billy_ellis Milano, Italy

Yeah, so things have fallen apart.
So starts the new novel by Canadian author Miriam Toews (A Complicated Kindness, 2004) which tells the story of the Troutmans and their trip to find a way to keep the family together.
Min is Thebie and Logan's mother and she's been suferring for a long time of depression; Hattie is her sister: she is in Paris, dumped by her Buddah-follower fiancé, and she gets a call by her niece about her sister's relapse.
Hattie flies back to Manitoba, takes Min to the psychiatric ward and embarks herself, Thebie and Logan on a trip through the United States to find their long-lost father.

In this bright, fresh but at times tough and implacable novel, Toews shows her best humor (A Boy Of Good Breeding; Summer Of My Amazing Luck) but mostly her genuine and unique skills a 2008 novelist should have: psychological depth, ductility and a series of well-built characters.

Post scriptum.
I'm Thebie Troutman, yo!
It's very rare to find a character like Thebie Troutman. Not talking about a simple eleven year old girl, but about a girl like Thebie, whose strenght, oddity, brightness and emotional depth is nowhere to be found in these year's literature (except, maybe, Briony Tallis in Atonement, whose features are different than Thebie's but just as strong).
Good job, Miriam! Yo!

The best book of the year so far by one of the best writers of this decade.
Useless to summarize the plot: desperation, sorrow, love and impulses of a fragile but yet stronger Helen Knightly lead the storyline from a ravaging beginning to a heartfelt ending.
Alice Sebold has created another masterpiece. Nobody dare expose her as a women-only writer or romance novels one: this book is proof that talent can't be restricted to a sole category.