Fight Night

Fight Night, published in 2021, is Canadian author Miriam Toews’s ninth book. Like many of her works, including the award-winning 2018 novel Women Talking, Fight Night draws on the author’s personal history as a Mennonite to explore themes of mortality and despair, repression and joy, and the limits and means of language. The novel became a bestseller upon its publication and received positive reviews. It was shortlisted for the 20201 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 Atwood Gibston Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Other works by Toews include A Complicated Kindness (2004) and All My Puny Sorrows (2014).

This guide refers to the Bloomsbury Publishing paperback edition, published in 2023.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss mental illness, suicide, and religious trauma and mention physical abuse and alcohol abuse. This guide also mentions sexual violence.

Plot Summary

Nine-year-old Swiv tries to take care of her Mom and Grandma. Mom is pregnant and Dad has left, so Grandma has arrived to help out. Mom has been destabilized by tragedy. She lost her father and sister to suicide, and she fears that the same fate might befall her. She was also physically and mentally abused while shooting a movie in Albania. Meanwhile, Grandma’s spirit seems indomitable, but she is increasingly infirm. Swiv spends much of her time searching for the pills that she accidentally drops and trying to avoid the embarrassment that Mom causes with her emotional outbursts.

In Part 1, Swiv begins a letter to her father by explaining why she has been expelled from school. She cannot help but fight with her teacher and the other students. Grandma conducts unorthodox lessons, such as “Editorial Meeting” and “Poached Egg,” to continue Swiv’s education. Swiv herself gives assignments to Grandma and Mom. She wants them to write their own letters to Gord, the name they have jokingly given Swiv’s future sibling.

Mom is an actor, and she is rehearsing for a play that she will almost certainly not perform in because of the baby. Grandma spends her days talking to friends in her “secret language,” as Swiv terms it. Grandma once lived in West Berlin during the Cold War and lived for years afterward in a Mennonite community in Canada. This experience was traumatizing for her, repressing her natural joy. Swiv reports on all of this without always understanding exactly what she is saying. Meanwhile, the house in which the women live is under threat from gentrification; a man they call Jay Gatsby wants to buy their home. At the end of Part 1, Grandma decides that she wants to visit Fresno, California, a place where a lot of former members of her community live, as well as some relatives.

In Part 2, Swiv and Grandma embark upon an adventure to California, where Lou and Ken, Grandma’s nephews, live. Before his heart attack, Lou was a successful tech worker. Ken lives with his girlfriend, Jude, whose hidden underwear scandalizes Swiv.

Grandma and Swiv visit a nursing home where many of Grandma’s friends now reside. Grandma entertains them with an impromptu dance and falls. She knocks out a tooth and breaks her arm. Swiv attempts to drive them back to Ken’s house, but the task is impossible. Some teens who see their predicament help them make their way back, stopping at Grandma’s sister’s house on the way.

While Lou and Ken want to take Grandma to a hospital immediately, all Grandma wants is to return home. Thus, she and Swiv make their way to the airport and fly back to Toronto. When they arrive, Grandma goes to the hospital and is soon transported to the intensive care unit (ICU). Mom, distraught, goes into labor. As Grandma is taken into care, Gord is finally born, and Swiv has a new baby sister. Swiv runs between the ICU and Mom’s room. She tells Grandma that Gord has finally arrived, but Grandma will not open her eyes.

Swiv waits until Mom falls asleep and then puts Gord in her backpack. She takes Gord to Grandma, placing the baby on Grandma’s chest. Grandma wakes up to hold the baby. When Mom finds the room, all four rest in the bed for a while.

Swiv finishes her letter to her father by noting that three people went into the hospital that day and three people came out. Grandma passed away, but Gord is now present. Swiv finds one of Grandma’s pills on the floor and falls to her knees.