Giant

by Aga Maksimowska

How do you fit in in a new country when you're a "giant freak," you don't speak the language and bizarre things are happening to your motherland as well as to your body? In a candid and peculiar voice reminiscent of Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals, Aga Maksimowska tells the story of an eleven-year-old girl in an adult's body whose coming of age in a country undergoing a revolution is interrupted by a sudden and cruel move to Canada. Readers will find the story of the Autumn of Nations, in 1989 in Eastern Europe, a time when youth took to the streets to rebel against a century of suffering under Communist rule, relevant to our time when youth in Egypt, Libya, Syria and many other Arab nations attempt to throw off the yoke of their autocratic regimes. Gosia presents a child's perspective of revolution, a traumatic time of change which for Gosia herself coincides with the insurrection of her own body and the devastating absence of her migrant-worker parents: a mother who works in Canada and a container ship machinist father who ferries Asian goods to Europe. A sudden move to Canada forces Gosia to experience the tumults of puberty in a foreign land far from loved ones who remain in Poland as it undergoes drastic transformation and struggles to rebuild and invent a new reality for an old republic. In Canada, like many children of migrants, Gosia is unsure of her identity: she's neither Polish nor Canadian. As she grows up, she's forced to weave a new existence for herself, one that includes new multi-ethnic influences and old familial traditions.

Genres: Fiction, Polish Literature, Canada

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Aga Maksimowska is the author of the 2013 Toronto Book Awards shortlisted novel Giant. She emigrated from Poland in 1988. She studied Journalism at Ryerson University and Education at the University of Toronto. In 2010, she completed a Master’s of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. Aga lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter, where she is teaching high-school English and working on her second novel.

Reviews

[Teleseparatist · Rating 4 out of 5]

The four stars may be a little excessive - I am not certain about the technical side being all that exceptional, and there was one particularly annoying spelling mistake in a Polish word (Papież, not Papierz!) - but I loved how true and real the story felt. I've never read a novel which would be as regional and accurate and set almost in my own time. There surely must be other ones - in Polish - but I don't know them. And the distance, I think, allows the author to be less apologetic, perhaps, and to show the contradictions without attempting to disentangle them.

The description of the relationship between the protagonist and her grandmother was heartbreaking and particularly convincing for me - it also hit close to home in some ways because I was raised by my grandmother for some time, too.

The food is accurate, and so is the conflict, the hate, the behaviours. It's what I remember from my childhood; some of it has changed, and some has not.

I found the sections dedicated to family much more convincing than those related to friends - and some of the focus on the body, its changes and physiology felt a little bit calculated. I wasn't always sure about the dialogue - the younger sister sounded mature far beyond her years sometimes, and a lot of the dialogue would translate into Polish really badly.

Nevertheless, this was a book well worth reading and a very promising debut.

[Joanka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a very intimate and also in a way weird experience for me. On the one hand it’s a about a Polish girl not much older than me. I might have not remembered life in PRL but my conscious childhood happened so soon after that I shared lots experiences with Gosia, among them a parent who crossed the ocean to find a better life for their family. Some of the themes pulled very sensitive strings in my heart and I cried my eyes out reading some parts. On the other hand, the books shows Poland from the outside and not often, if ever, have I got to read such novels, an interesting perspective. The author remembered her motherland enough to make an honest story, on the other hand there were some strange ideas and words used at times, throwing me out of the book’s spell a bit.

Still, I recommend it to everyone, as most of all, it is a beautiful book about longing, belonging and migration on more than one level.

[Ania · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird book this was for me to read. Reading it felt like reading my own biography as roughly 70% of the content is identical to my own life. In a way this girl had it easier than me and yet this book just had such a sad feel to it, something I couldn't relate to so well. I really liked it in parts but in parts it just felt too sad. I still recommend it though if you ever wanted to know what Poland was like in the late 80s/early 90s and how tough it is to immigrate and completely forsake one life for another.

[Danube · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I can say is that this is a great book. It's funny and filled with witty commentary from the narrator and gives some good insight on how Polish-Canadians felt when they immigrated to Canada in the 80s and 90s.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad giving this personal story such a low rating but I really didn’t like this book. I didn’t connect with the author, I didn’t connect with the story and I didn’t find a reason for the story. There were also too many instances where there was a time shift and I never once understood why it was necessary. I understand that the double whammy of large child and immigrant experience should have made me sympathetic to the author but it just didn’t work for me.

[CreativelyRed · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting and well written book. I liked most the final chapter and the fact I know the author. Not quite my usual interest in a story but an interesting story about being new to Canada and unsure where one belongs.

[Alison Champ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! The writing was beautiful....I found myself laughing at one moment, and crying the next.

[Rebecca Sutherland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love loved this book!

[Mariusz Kalisiak · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book. I lived in the same place in Poland as the heroine of the book but my memories from there are completely different. I understand that she was unhappy living there without parents and that is why she could not write anything good about people and the country. As a result, a Canadian reading this book now will get a false impression that Poland is a gloomy country of drunk loosers, smugglers and former communists. The poor style and several factual errors add to my disappointment.

[Susan Wight · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eleven-year-old in an adult-sized body, Gosia has lived her whole life in Poland behind the iron curtain but for some time her mother has been in Canada. When Gosia and her little sister are to join her for a 'holiday', Gosia must tackle her teenage years with no idea of the language or the rules in her new country.
An unusual coming of age novel of someone caught between two cultures.

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY]

Hey Everyone! Please check out my latest interview with Aga Maksimowska as we discuss her debut novel, Giant (Pedlar Press, 2012). Read it now on my TTQ Blog.
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...

[Jael Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling narrator with a wonderful voice that gripped me from the very beginning.

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing, good story.

[Karen Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Local Toronto writer who came to our book club to talk about it. Just a great story.