Swing Low : A Life

From Publishers Weekly
Toews's father, Mel, lived the simple life of a faithful Mennonite community member in mid-20th-century Canada, as a schoolteacher, father and devout churchgoer. In 1952, only a few knew he had been diagnosed with manic depression at age 17, and his struggle to conceal this from the world and maintain a "normal" life met with varying degrees of success until retirement shook his self-image and he began to slide into his most serious depression. This ordinary but poignant biography, written by his daughter (A Boy of Good Breeding), reconstructs Mel's story in his own voice, which, once established, provides a deeply sympathetic imagining of a manic depressive's interior world. From an early age, Toews's father believed that "there was no hope for the world, that evil would inevitably triumph over good, and that there was, therefore, no point in striving for goodness. And yet I also felt that the struggle to be good was the purpose of life." In Toews's version, Mel eventually turns to writing to make sense of his condition, to review his life in the hope of seeing it more clearly.What engages us is a strong and realistic sense of a man who chose to use the little energy he had to construct a safe world for his family, but one in which he felt he could never fully participate. For Toews, by "dragging some of the awful details into the light of day," she recognized that her father "found a way to alleviate his pain, and so have I." Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Manic depression, or bipolar disorder, is commonly characterized by hyperactive highs and extreme lows, the latter sometimes leading to suicide. One day Canadian Melvin Toews got out of bed, dressed, and headed out the door. He sat or knelt at a train track and waited for the train, which eventually came. A lifetime of manic depression with no real treatment may have led him to that sad end. How he may have come to that point was the question that prompted his daughter to write her father's "memoir." Using in part her father's writings, Miriam Toews chronicles her father's life effectively "in his own words." His strict Mennonite community and upbringing may have led to a life in which he had to endure his illness without treatment, and for a time he was successful. Both his work as an elementary-school teacher and his dedication to building the perfect home masked his problem for a while. When he was finally hospitalized, it probably was too late to help him cope with his illness. Marlene Chamberlain
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
One morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and immensely popular schoolteacher, he was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggle, he could no longer face the darkness of manic depression. With razor-sharp precision, Swing Low tells his story in his own voice, taking us deep inside the experience of despair. But it is also a funny, winsome evocation of country life: growing up on farm, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a happy, strong family in the midst of private torment. A humane, inspiring story of a remarkable man, father, and teacher.

About the Author
Miriam Toews is an award-winning novelist and short-story writer. She lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two children.


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A father's suicide sets the stage for this wrenching account of a man's lifelong battle with mental illness, creatively written in his voice, as imagined by his daughter. At the age of 17, Mel Toews was diagnosed as suffering from manic depression, now known as bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists warned him he would not be able to live a normal life, yet despite these warnings, he fell in love, got married, reared two daughters, and taught elementary school for more than 40 years in the small town of Steinbach, Manitoba. Mel's ordered life seemed to be a triumph of spirit and self-discipline, yet he often was unable to function, particularly at home (he didn't utter one sound for an entire year). Finally, after a lifetime of struggle, Mel succumbed to the disease and took his own life. During his last days in the hospital, he asked his daughter Miriam to write down words or sentences he hoped would lead him out of his confusion. It was this glimpse into her father's troubled mind that led her to write a longer account from his point of view. She shows the progression of Mel's deterioration, skillfully entwining in his words the effect of the illness not only on the individual, but also on his family. In expressive, often unrelentingly painful prose, the narration ranges from choppy thoughts to moving passages: "I was caught in a no man's land, paralyzed in a place that lay somewhere in between my past and my future, unable to move or dream or call out for help, or even die." Mel's last words to his daughter: "Nothing accomplished." A powerful portrait of a man who, despite all odds, managed to live a normal life.


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