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Heart Berries

A Memoir

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father—an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist—who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.
Mailhot trusts us to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Rainy Fields narrates this deeply original memoir in solemn tones that suit the work. Mailhot traces her personal journey coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia and her development as a writer. Presenting herself at times as "ruined"--and "ruining"--she radiates a vulnerability that Fields's deft narration captures. Mailhot's questions and answers at the audiobook's end are especially enlightening; listeners may want to listen once through, then loop back a second time to fully absorb her intimate honesty, and to fully engage with the sometimes nonlinear and frequently lyrical nature of the writing. Mailhot wrote some passages initially as fiction, but says they're now "bound together and retold as truth." Fields steadily, surely makes that truth available to listeners. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:680
  • Text Difficulty:3

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