Georgia Toews, author of the new novel Nobody Asked for This, is seated in Jimmy’s Coffee on Ossington Avenue, a café she knows so well it nearly made its way into the book’s first chapter. The barista taking her order even makes a cameo in her anecdotes—though an early draft included a fictionalized version of him, her editor ultimately convinced her to keep it out. “I want to be able to come back,” she jokes.
Toews, daughter of acclaimed Canadian novelist Miriam Toews, may have grown up surrounded by literature, but her path to fiction was not direct. As a teenager in Winnipeg, she found her mother’s work off-limits, both literally and emotionally. She recalls trying to read A Boy of Good Breeding around age nine, only to have it swiftly taken from her by her father. At 13, her interest was further deterred after discovering one of Miriam’s novels was listed for having one of the “Top 10 Sex Scenes in Literature.” “I went, ‘I’m not reading my mother’s smutty novels!’” she says, laughing.
It wasn’t until her early twenties, during a turbulent period marked by family upheaval and the pressures of art school, that Toews returned to her mother’s work. “Reading her books became a way to feel close to her,” she says. “It’s bittersweet—knowing now how much of yourself goes into fiction. I’m proud of her, but it’s also painful to read sometimes.”
Now based in Toronto, the two remain extremely close. Miriam lives just steps away in a laneway house, and the proximity often turns into daily check-ins, complete with exclamation-point-filled texts. “If we don’t use enough exclamation marks, one of us shows up at the other’s door like, ‘Are we okay?’” Toews says.
Toews’s professional journey began in the performing arts. After dropping out of art school in Montreal and failing to get into theatre programs like Studio 58 and the National Theatre School, she moved to Toronto and enrolled in Humber College’s comedy: writing and performance program. Though improv came naturally, performing standup was another matter. “I would kind of just black out and disassociate but get through,” she says.
Still, standup offered an accessible way to present her writing. Toews soon became a fixture in Toronto’s comedy scene, bartending at venues, dating fellow comedians, and even moving briefly to New York to pursue comedy more seriously. Yet, she says, something was missing. “I wanted a creative outlet, but one where I could play, process, and explore safely. Fiction seemed like the right fit.”
That exploration forms the heart of Nobody Asked for This, which follows Virginia, a 23-year-old standup comedian navigating Toronto’s comedy scene while processing trauma and striving toward personal and professional aspirations—including a move to Los Angeles. Alongside the professional grind, Virginia wrestles with sexual assault, fading friendships, and grief.
“I wanted to show how comedy can both heal and hurt,” Toews says.
Her first novel, Hey, Good Luck Out There, also pulled from personal experience, particularly her journey through addiction and recovery. Publishing that book prompted reconnections with friends from her past—many of whom had witnessed her darkest moments. “There’s this desire to understand what happens in female friendships during times like that,” she says. “Romantic breakups have scripts. But what happens when a friendship breaks apart? It can be just as painful.”
Nobody Asked for This continues that inquiry, focusing on Virginia’s complex friendship with her childhood best friend, Hayley. Their relationship, introduced through a tense coffee shop argument, reflects the fragility and evolution of intimacy between women—especially during life-altering events. “People would say, ‘You’re back to your old self,’ but I didn’t feel that way. I’m not the same woman I was before addiction, and that’s okay,” Toews says. “I want that new version of me to be accepted.”
While the novel features standup routines and comedic dialogue, Toews hesitates to label herself as funny. “I think I’m the loudest in my family, not the funniest,” she says. “My husband’s funny, my kids are hilarious, my brother’s funny—and my mother is famously funny.”
Writing Virginia’s comedy proved especially challenging. Toews wanted the routines to reflect the tone and culture of the comedy scene without sounding like her own material. “The jokes comedians make—the process itself—can be hurtful, even offensive. I wanted to strike a balance: be funny, but also honest.”
The comedy scenes in the novel are not designed to dazzle readers with punchlines but to immerse them in Virginia’s world. “Standup is so much about performance. The audience in the novel has to do more legwork,” Toews explains.
Despite the heavy themes—addiction, sexual trauma, broken friendships—Toews’s work is underscored by empathy and wit. She attributes that balance to a fundamental truth: “The world is so funny and so terrible. I enjoy writing about people living in the afte
