Swing Low
- Author Miriam Toews
- Narrator David Hamilton
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date 25 September 2025
- Run Time 6 hours and 16 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Autobiography: writers, Coping with death and bereavement, Memoirs.
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What to expect
'Witty and daring … with a hearse-black wit and a quiet wisdom' GUARDIAN
'A profoundly affecting book' TORONTO STAR
Internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews recounts her father's life as he might have told it, right up to his final day.
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.
Reverberating with emotional power, authenticity, and insight, Swing Low is a humane, inspiring story of a remarkable man, father, and teacher.
Critics Review
n 'The magic of Swing Low is that Toews makes a life that looked ordinary, even grindingly so, seem exalted' n New York Times Book Reviewn
nn 'Witty and daring … with a hearse-black wit and quiet wisdom … The result is a portrait that lives beyond paper' n Guardiann
nn 'Toews' novelistic skills are richly apparent in her evocative characterizations and in the deft drama of the narrative … A profoundly affecting book'n Toronto Starn
nn 'Audacious, original and profoundly moving … Healing is a likely outcome of a book imbued with the righteous anger, compassion and humanity of Swing Low'n Globe and Mailn
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