Not only does Elf want to die but she wants Yoli to help her, concocting schemes for them to go overseas together where Elf can get enough of certain drugs to finally succeed in dying. Or she would be if her beloved sister wasn't so determined to kill herself. Despite her chronic money problems, the difficulties of single parenting, and multiple failed relationships behind her, she is generally pretty happy. Given half a chance, she consistently bollockses up her life and needs to be bailed out by her sister. Yolandi (Yoli) appears to be the diametric opposite of her older sister. And yet she is deeply depressed, attempting suicide regularly. She is happily married to a wonderful, thoughtful, and loving man.

In Miriam Toews' latest novel, All My Puny Sorrows, there are two sisters caught in their self-defined roles as one of them actively seeks to leave this world and the other struggles to keep her sister in it.Įlfrieda (Elf) is a world-renowned concert pianist. Often they find their roles in the family and they hew to those roles forever after. They can frustrate each other, annoy each other, even dislike each other at times, but they are still connected in inexplicable ways. They fight like cats and dogs but they love each other right down to the marrow of their beings.

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