PINCHING ZWIEBACK, Made-up stories from the Darp, Mitchell Toews, At Bay Press, 2023, paper, pp 253 Review by Linda Rogers Van Krugel, Victoria, BC

On child birthdays we toss the kids in the air, make wishes and offer a “pinch to grow an inch.” Pinching Zwieback is a gathering of pinches as a young man, dough in the hands of powerful albeit diminished women that rises in the oven of cultural expectation to a better understanding of his place in the world beyond the kitchen of his creation.

That is the substance of Pinching Zwieback, rhymes with Steinbach, the town of Toews’ awakening. The linked stories in this premier collection from a senior writer describe the apostate Christian community he is growing into and out of now that the skin he was born in no longer fits. This was always true for the narrators born as outsiders in an outsider religion.

The earliest stories in the Bible tell us of exile and that is the status of boys born into an immigrant community, two degrees of separation from their historical selves. For this writer and others, new flesh pyjamas are neologisms that chafe their doctrines of faith. Belonging, at once the impetus for diaspora is the difficulty when it is achieved.

The Steinbach cohort learn in increments and their baby steps are measured in short stories, especially those written when expectation has been replaced by wisdom. Mitch Toews is a grandfather, his voice sifted through grizzle, the grey beard that bears witness to a lifetime of experience, and his coming-of-age collection is a double entendre, panis angelicus and little devils growing into the bodies of angels who challenge the status quo.

His stories, small anxieties, grow out of fear, children afraid of the dark, longing for the light. The transforming narrator has grown up through the three stages of man to a realisation that every effort to rise into a paradigm is the stuff of comedy because there is no perfect fit. Skin is woven by DNA and the declared DNA of Mennonite boys is kindness, pacifism, precepts often lost when religion becomes political, something, we suspect, Toews is noticing in the world his boys long to be part of, but on their own terms.

Pacifism, a precept of Mennonites often lost in the noise of struggling to fit outsiderhood, rises to assert itself in critical moments. This book is a double bun, doughy anecdotes from a spirited childhood coupled with the realisation that manhood is a more complex goal than just being strong, especially when strength translates into bullying, especially of women, the archetypal bakers of the author’s imagination.

One such moment arrives in the story where two friends are expected to fight because one commits an indiscretion by revealing a secret of vulnerability. The boys are expected to duke it out, neither of them comfortable with that resolution. A deeper language speaks in the half-hearted skirmish where blood knowledge informs them that friendship is deeper than difference and indiscretion is often more apocryphal storytelling than moral betrayal.

In “Fall From Grace,” a beautiful story of risk, we learn once again that moral challenges require more courage than mindless forages into physical danger, a temptation that leaves too many young men in graves and wheelchairs, and even more silenced young women subject to the violence menacingly referenced in the drowned silence of “Breezy.”

“Sunday school principles were discarded when the blood ran hot.” In the Steinbach world, a sensitive boy needed armour, regalia with spikes to deflect the shibboleths that kept him static within the social order, thou shalt nots pouring like molten proverb from the mouths of prophets and schoolteachers.

Mennonites were/are a hierarchy, men on top, some pigs better than others in the language of George Orwell. And sows are barely pigs, Adam’s rib, let us guess a penis, dedicated to stirring the pot, with the secret provision for rebellion when the kettle boils over.

In the story “The Grittiness of Mango Chiffon,” Matt describes his mother’s feminist rage against an elitist bully of a schoolteacher who would have her teenaged daughter expelled for wearing pants to stay warm in winter. “For this she used her secret weapon—a large English vocabulary. A second lexical ordnance to complement her mastery of Low German.” It is a small rebellion, albeit over the phone not person to person, but it is women talking, the beginning of revolution against the norms that constrain.

It is control of language that determines cultural survival. That is what so many colonial societies are learning as they search for elders and text to explain themselves. Toews’ struggle between the desire to know himself and find himself is the key to comedy and pathos in his quest for definition. Perhaps this is an easier task for the women who stick to making bread and remember the recipes.

Making bread is women’s work in patriarchal society and it takes a voyeur like Toews to notice strength in forearms that pinch and shape dough and the character of children with muscle memory.

We come out of these stories with sympathy for both sides, but, in the end, bread wins and by the time the boys grow up, the women are in positions of power their grandmothers never dreamed of.

The arc of every story in this collection is a micro-battle against expectation, the status quo, as the three main recurrent boy/man characters—Matt, Lenny, and Diedrich—struggle to understand their legacy, the being of their Mennonite heritage, in the context of a language they barely understand (and kindly provide a glossary) and a hierarchy that makes them less, so that in some senses they are women, or are at least aware of the life sentences handed down at birth.

Just as the three male protagonists are uncomfortable with their ancestral language and the inference that it reduces their status in a patriarchal culture, the reader experiences dis/gravitas as Low German is sprinkled like itching powder in the text. Pain is the father of humour and humour is relief.

I remember being invited to dinner at a forest haven, populated by privileged tourists, all of whom spoke High German, in the BC Interior. Our host, of Mennonite extraction, warned us not to let on that he understood the language. “The minute I respond in my dialect, they will treat us badly,” he said. I had to wonder what we were doing there, reliving pain even a diaspora could not cure.

Only writing can do that, my friend is discovering.

“…he still felt the old resentment, as stinging as tears, being in this place and reliving the old thoughts again.” So what is Toews doing here, outing himself by juggling unfamiliar speech, the language of his ancestors? Just as it is for the mothers and guardian aunts who care for Matt, Lenny, and Diedrich, everything depends on the energy of conviction. The outrider needs to signal danger otherwise we all run off the cliff into the valley of discrimination.

Baseball is the metaphor in this coming of great age book. As we sit back and watch the game: hits, runs, errors, we understand both rules and surprises, and girls can play too. In “The Narrowing” a story about facing fear, Matt, now a grandfather, urges his grandson Tim to confront the knife’s edge of living dangerously, playing chicken with a train. This is a man playing a boy’s game and, although the boy wins by surviving, the grandfather is left to confront his hubris and the greater wisdom of his daughter.

In the final story “In the Dim Light Beyond the Fence,” Matt’s death experience lovingly recalled in the context of baseball, the Mennonite game of recognition is played out: “…the past shunnings, social stigmatization. Institutional misogyny. All of it, the good and the bad. Dad was so proud of the pacifism, though that was tainted in some ways, but so what. They tried.” Life is reaching for the light, which never falters even as the human characters flicker and fade.

As these stories rise in Toews’ proverbial oven they grow away from the fire of creation, the same fire that has tempted and driven notable female voices from the Mennonite community. This time it is men talking. Both sides now.

JUST FOR FUN, I fed every review and comment about my collection of short stories, Pinching Zwieback into the free ChatGPT kitchen and asked ol’ Chatty Cathy to make me an omelette. Here’s what was served. . .

First of all, WHO AM I?

“Author Mitchell Toews is a Canadian writer whose work has been nominated for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize (Pulp Literature, 2025) and four Pushcart Prizes.

His debut collection, Pinching Zwieback (At Bay Press, 2023), explores fairness, faith, and voice in rural and urban communities. His fiction has appeared in more than fifty journals across North America and Europe and a novel is forthcoming.

Mitch and his wife Janice live in a 75-year-old cottage in the Canadian Boreal forest, just north of the 50th parallel.“

Here are the actual reviews or links to them: https://mitchellaneous.com/2023/10/11/early-praise-for-pinching-zwieback-2/

See the book, Pinching Zwieback on the At Bay Press website here: https://atbaypress.com/books/detail/pinching-zwieback

And here is how ChatGPT summarized the reviews and commentary:

Pinching Zwieback – Consolidated Critical Reception Overview

Notable Reviewer Highlights and Quotes

• Armin Wiebe: “Mitchell Toews’ stories range from Tom Sawyer-like tales of boyhood squabbles to the heartbreak of family dysfunction… From 1874 Russia to 21st-century Manitoba and British Columbia, Mitchell Toews’ linked stories present a boisterous and poignant family saga unlike any other in Mennonite literature.”
• Donna Besel: “Mitch’s debut collection pays homage to Mennonite language, food, history, and culture… but he does not shy away from sharp insights into the limitations of a closed and controlled way of life.”
• Ralph Friesen: “Mitch Toews speaks from the margins of small-town society, claiming a space for the underdog and the undervalued… His rare talent touches your heart and is funny, too.”
• Linda Rogers Van Krugel: “The linked stories describe the apostate Christian community he is growing into and out of… narrators born as outsiders in an outsider religion.”
• Alanna Rusnak: “Moves like a tide through visceral daily experiences—quintessentially Canadian, some heart-wrenching, each powerfully evocative.”
• Leslie Wakeman: “His stories allow us to hold space for challenging our notions on life.”
• Rachael Friesen: “…snapshots from each character and how the stories flow from one generation to the next were fantastic.”
• Zilla Jones: “Mitchell Toews’ stories ask universal questions about belonging, conforming, and dissenting… ostensibly Mennonite, but the themes… are universal.”

General Reception

• Pinching Zwieback has been widely praised for its authentic depiction of Prairie Mennonite life, skillfully blending humour, moral reflection, and cultural specificity.
• Reviewers note that while stories often begin with playful or whimsical setups, they carry significant emotional, moral, or physical stakes, as seen in Swimming in the Bazavluk (near-drowning) and Fall From Grace.
• Toews’ prose is consistently praised for its precision, clarity, and warmth, making the collection accessible while engaging deeply with culture, heritage, and interpersonal dynamics.
• The collection has received repeated coverage from sources including the Winnipeg Free Press, McNally Robinson, Anabaptist World, Literary Heist, and Blank Spaces Magazine, as well as multiple interviews and discussions with the author, demonstrating broad literary and cultural recognition.

Key Themes Highlighted by Reviewers

1. Coming-of-Age and Moral Growth
   • Stories frequently focus on adolescents navigating ethical dilemmas, social pressures, and family dynamics.
   • Humour and adventure are balanced with serious lessons about resilience, responsibility, and morality.
2. Cultural Heritage and Mennonite Identity
   • The collection emphasizes Mennonite traditions, work ethic, and community norms.
   • Historical and ancestral connections, e.g., settings in Ukraine or Russia (Swimming in the Bazavluk), link characters to generational memory.
   • Commentary by Armin Wiebe and others notes Toews’ ability to explore aspects of Mennonite life that other writers have largely avoided: class, racism, small-town hypocrisy, and intergenerational conflict.
3. Humour and Emotional Range
   • Stories oscillate between the hilarious and the tragic, reflecting real-life complexity.
   • Humour illuminates character insight and cultural observation rather than serving purely as comic relief.
4. Community, Belonging, and Individuality
   • Stories examine social pressures, conformity, and dissent, as well as family and community relationships.
   • Zilla Jones emphasizes that although the stories are ostensibly Mennonite, themes of belonging vs. alienation and individual vs. family are universal.
   • Ralph Friesen and Leslie Wakeman note Toews’ attention to marginalized voices and underdogs, highlighting emotional stakes alongside comedic elements.
5. Generational and Interconnected Storytelling
   • Multiple reviewers, including Rachael Friesen, highlight the linked generational narratives that follow characters across decades and locations, from 19th-century Russia to contemporary Manitoba and British Columbia.
   • Armin Wiebe observes that recurring family threads (e.g., the Zehen family and a family bakery) allow stories to explore love, rivalry, moral tests, and both physical and emotional peril.
6. Universality and Canadian Identity
   • Alanna Rusnak describes the stories as “quintessentially Canadian,” moving through daily experiences, with heart-wrenching and evocative moments.
   • Linda Rogers emphasizes Toews’ exploration of outsider identity and personal transformation, connecting the Prairie Mennonite context to broader human experience.

Overall Critical Consensus

Strengths

• Exceptional authenticity and cultural fidelity, capturing Prairie Mennonite life across multiple generations and geographies.
• Skillful blending of humor, moral reflection, and narrative tension, often with life-or-death stakes.
• Character-driven stories that resonate emotionally while reflecting ethical and social dilemmas.
• Universality: While rooted in Mennonite experience, stories explore human themes of belonging, identity, and resilience.

Summary

Pinching Zwieback is celebrated as a groundbreaking and multifaceted collection in contemporary Mennonite and Canadian literature. The stories balance playfulness, peril, humor, and moral insight, while creating a linked generational tapestry from 19th-century Russia to present-day Canadian Prairies. Critical and public reception highlights Toews’ literary craft, emotional depth, and cultural insight, establishing the collection as both an entertaining and thought-provoking work.