'Toews is an artist of escape; she always finds a way for her characters, trapped by circumstance, to liberate themselves.'—Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker

 

Jorge said he wasn't coming back until I learned how to be a better wife …

 

The life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth, recently married and more recently deserted, is turned on its head when a film crew arrives to make a movie about the strict Mennonite community in which she and her family live. Against her family's wishes, Irma takes a job on set and glimpses the wider world and a path toward something that feels like freedom.