Canadian writer Georgia Toews on using comedy as a way to survive

For some people, young adulthood can feel more like a crash landing than a glorious journey — and Georgia Toews knows that better than anyone. 

Drawing from her own time in the stand-up comedy scene in her 20s, her latest novel, Nobody Asked for This, tells the story of Virginia, a young comedian in Toronto.

While the Toronto-based Toews had some "not-so-great" experiences during that part of her life and doesn't want to shy away from those in her writing, she wanted to use her novel to centre in on the amazing and powerful women in comedy she encountered. 

"I wanted to focus on when I was excited and when it was fun — and this idea of creating joy, which I still think I am trying to do in a different form, a different medium," she said on Bookends with Mattea Roach.

"I was really happy to kind of go back to that time."

In Nobody Asked for This, alongside the usual messiness of growing up and chasing comedy stardom, Virginia is grappling with the loss of her mother, discord with her best friend and roommate and navigating a traumatic encounter. 

Toews, daughter of literary icon Miriam Toews, joined Roach to discuss Nobody Asked for This, the perils of adulthood and the Canadian comedy industry.

Mattea Roach: For your character Virginia, what is it that happens to her that leads her to take up comedy as a career and a practice? 

Georgia Toews: The death of her mother and her trying to find a way to find some sense of control with her grief. She was young when she lost her mother. And like any kind of young woman, especially in high school, there's almost this embarrassment.

I certainly felt a feeling of being too much, being dramatic about your feelings. That's so ingrained. Especially for young women.

Virginia wants so much to control, to seem brave, to seem strong to work against that archetype. But she goes to comedy and she finds that this is a safe place for her and this is how she can kind of survive and pretend that she's controlling her grief. 

Did you feel at all that there were things in your life that you were trying to navigate through comedy during your early 20s journey with it? 

I learned from a young age that comedy was a way to survive. I was a very insecure kid and I remember, at a birthday party — I was in Grade four and a Grade six girl invited me to her birthday party — and she was so cool. She could draw really well and that was what mattered. All her friends were cool. 

I was not talking to anyone. No one was talking to me. And I just started stuffing hot dogs in my mouth, like being this buffoon, this clown. Then suddenly, I was invited to the sleepover after. That's maybe not a great example of humiliating myself to be liked. 

I learned from a young age that comedy was a way to survive.- Georgia Toews

But it was a moment that sticks out that I'm like, "Okay, I can laugh, I can put up this shield and it makes me feel brave." It makes me feel brave when I can do that and so I've kind of kept that. 

So much of Nobody Asked for This centres around this relationship that your character Virginia has with her roommate Haley, who she's known since they were teenagers and who's dealing with some pretty profound depression and mental health problems. What are some of the points of contention in this relationship between Virginia and Haley? 

They're at this place where they have these versions of each other that they're really clinging to because they both need that stability for themselves. They both need each other to be these versions that they feel the safest with. They're not really allowing each other to evolve and grow. They both resent each other in a way, for going on these different paths because they are both suffering in their own ways.

They both need each other to be these versions that they feel the safest with.- Georgia Toews

Not that I believe women are in competition with each other, but I think because they started off at this place together and now they're going on such different paths.

It's hard not to compare when they're living together and what they're both dealing with and where does that stack up and who should be more supportive. In any friendship, it's hard to navigate life changes and these major events, but when you're in this kind of pressure cooker situation. There's more of a spotlight on it. I think they're really struggling with trying to be each other's safe space and wanting that from each other, but both falling short. 

How do you know or can you know if you've arrived as an adult? I think a lot of people who are in their early to mid 20s, even into their 30s, feel like they're faking it a little bit when it comes to adulthood. 

I still don't know if I have arrived and I don't know what it means to be an adult. I mean, I pay taxes, I vote. The things you can do as an adult, but I don't know. 

Even having kids, getting married, all these things that we feel we're supposed to do. I always wanted to have children, so I knew that was going to happen at whatever age, but I don't know if I've ever reached full adulthood. I feel younger now. 

I mean, I'm tired a lot because I have two children, but I feel younger watching them.

The only thing I can say that maybe I've reached some sense of adulthood is I feel more at peace with myself so I'm able to enjoy being the age I am more. I feel less insecure about getting to be somewhere, hitting some goal post. So I mean, maybe that's some sort of sign of adulthood. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity. It was produced by Liv Pasquarelli.