Though Swiv narrates the novel, Grandma is arguably its protagonist, as her experiences shape how the events unfold and how the past is understood. She speaks in her “secret language,” as Swiv denotes it, as she comes from a community of “escaped Russians” (30). Grandma was a refugee in post-World War II Europe whose family left for Canada to escape oppression. However, Grandma (and Mom) encountered a different form of oppression in Canada. In a religiously dominated town, leaders like Willit Braun dictated how the residents should think, believe, and behave.

The author, Miriam Toews, was raised in a Mennonite community in Canada, and these experiences inform Grandma’s background—indeed, the novel acknowledges the author’s own “revolutionary mother” (253), Elvira, which is also the given name of Grandma’s character. Braun represents all the repression that comes with the indoctrination that Grandma saw within the town. As Swiv records it, Braun “embodie[s] the fascist notion of a superior group” that only includes men (30). In addition, Grandma calls Braun “the uber-schultz of the village who [i]s a classic tyrant” (30). In Swiv’s letter to her father, phrases that she does not quite understand are italicized, but these italicizations also underline the phrases’ importance to the characters.