Revelatory . . . Like much of Toews' fiction, it is as fluent in the comic register as it is in the tragic . . . This is a grief memoir in the vein of Joan Didion's Blue Nights, or Alexandra Fuller's Fi: written not from the trenches of fresh loss but from the steadier perch of a generation-long hindsight.

New York Times Book Review

Playful, propulsive, and strange . . . A Truce That Is Not Peace reveals a masterful writer exploring the inner workings of her own inquisitive mind . . . [Toews] follows the orbit of her thoughts, tracing the circuitous paths they take, and pondering what makes a person press on in both life and art.

Time Magazine, "100 Must-Read Books of the Year"

A memoir, a coming to terms with her sister's suicide, an answer to the question of why she writes, and more, Toews's latest book bounces from dreams to letters to family memories and musings on such subjects as wind and silence. Toews circles the mysteries and the tragedies of her life, trying to piece moments together in a way that will lend meaning to the larger panorama of her past. At the same time, she infuses the grief with humor; loss is leavened by laughter.

The New Yorker, "Essential Reads of the Year"

Right from the start, A Truce That Is Not Peace reads like a whirling dervish of unbridled longing, bewilderment, sadness, anger, regret and joy that picks you up, swirls you around and doesn't let up until the dance, the storm-and, yes, the journey-is done.

The San Francisco Chronicle

In this lyrical memoir, Toews explores her writing career with storytelling that is at once propulsive and recursive, using her work as evidence of both her success and her inability to escape her past. It's bracing, candid reading.

The Los Angeles Times, "30 Must-Read Books for Summer"

A layered confrontation with the deaths, grief, and guilt that have animated [Toews'] work for nearly 30 years, providing haunting insights on how to live after tragic loss. . . The reader bobs along in the author's stream of consciousness, riding crests of despair, anger, and hilarity as Toews assembles the shards of her past to investigate her will to write, which is deeply entwined with her will to live.

The Atlantic