The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Four-year-old Ruthie was abducted and raised by Lenore as Norma. Her six-year-old brother Joe was the last to see her. Years later, Joe abandoned his pregnant wife. Norma and Joe were two lost souls until they reunited with their biological family.
This book is about the powerful (and fictional) attraction to our biological roots. Ruthie is never comfortable as Norma. Norma is obsessed with the differences between herself and her parents, Lenore and Frank. “Both my parents had earlobes firmly attached to the sides of their heads. Mine were not.” Joe feels guilty for Ruthie’s abduction, his brother Charlie’s murder at a carnival, and for hitting his wife, Cora. He runs away, waiting for the family to get him. They don’t.
This novel is set within the larger struggle of Native Americans in North America to reclaim their culture and identity within the pressure and coercion of white society. Ruthie’s abduction by Lenore and her judge husband, Frank, stands in for the Indian Schools. “Kill the Indian and save the man.” As an allegory for this battle, the book works well. However, the surface story of the primal attraction to one’s biological roots is overstated. For every person drawn to their biological origins, there is another who couldn't care less.
The author, Amanda Peters, is a citizen of the Glooscap First Nation in Nova Scotia, specializing in stories about Indigenous experiences.
“That’s why I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.”
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