Cover of Irma Voth

Irma Voth

That rare coming-of-age story able to blend the dark with the uplifting, Irma Voth follows a young Mennonite woman, vulnerable yet wise beyond her years, who carries a terrible family secret with her on a remarkable journey to survival and redemption.

Read more

Nineteen-year-old Irma lives in a rural Mennonite community in Mexico. She has already been cast out of her family for marrying a young Mexican ne'er-do-well she barely knows, although she remains close to her rebellious younger sister and yearns for the lost intimacy with her mother. With a husband who proves elusive and often absent, a punishing father, and a faith in God damaged beyond repair, Irma appears trapped in an untenable and desperate situation. When a celebrated Mexican filmmaker and his crew arrive from Mexico City to make a movie about the insular community in which she was raised, Irma is immediately drawn to the outsiders and is soon hired as a translator on the set. But her father, intractable and domineering, is determined to destroy the film and get rid of the interlopers. His action sets Irma on an irrevocable path toward something that feels like freedom.

A novel of great humanity, written with dry wit, edgy humor, and emotional poignancy, Irma Voth is the powerful story of a young woman's quest to discover all that she may become in the unexpectedly rich and confounding world that lies beyond the stifling, observant community she knows.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 272 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Irma Voth? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Irma Voth. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Natural Order Shares canadian, fiction, canada
  2. The Cure for Death by Lightning Shares canadian, fiction, canlit
  3. Alone in the Classroom Shares canadian, fiction, canada
  4. The Son of a Certain Woman Shares canadian, fiction, canlit

“People who read Irma Voth tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Juliet Stories
  2. Afterlands
  3. A Good Man
  4. Tell It to the Trees

“If you want more of the same (coming of age about religion), start with these.”

  1. Cataract City
  2. New Tab
  3. The Next Sure Thing
  4. Once We Had a Country

“If it was the canadian that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. River of the Brokenhearted
  2. The Last of the Crazy People
  3. Headhunter
  4. The Underpainter

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Fragile
  2. A Forbidden Rumspringa
  3. The Battle of the Villa Fiorita
  4. Whisper if You Need Me