Several years ago my sister, who reads as much if not more than I do, pressed a book into my hand and said ‘read this’. The book was called All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews and it blew my mind. I have been a HUGE fan of this little known Canadian author ever since and I urge you to read her work. Fight Night is her latest masterpiece. It is the story of a daughter, her mother and her grandmother. The grandmother is my new favourite literary superhero - she is hilarious, fierce, brave and unapologetic. She says and does things that most of us might think about but would never dream of actually saying or doing! The three women live, laugh, love and fight together and somehow, even when their lives are so depressingly hard you want to cry, it never ceases to be achingly beautiful and full of spirit. There are so many lines I could quote from the book but I’ll leave you with this one:
‘To be alive means full body contact with the absurd’.
— Olivia