Heart Berries

The first edition opens with a foreword by Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American novelist Sherman Alexie, offering what one reviewer characterized as "glowing introduction", and praising Mailhot as the "biological child of a broken healer and a lonely artist."{{cite web |title=Heart Berries |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/terese-marie-mailhot/heart-berries/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |access-date=September 26, 2018 |date=February 6, 2018}}{{efn|It was later announced that future editions of the book will no longer include the introduction by Alexie, following allegations of sexual misconduct.{{cite news |last1=Lederman |first1=Marsha |title=Writer Terese Marie Mailhot's journey from devastation to voice of a generation |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-writer-terese-marie-mailhots-journey-from-devastation-to-voice-of-a/ |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=The Globe and Mail |date=May 4, 2018}}}}

The main body proceeds as a series of essays which explore Mailhot's experiences growing up on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia, including her first marriage as a teenager, and the loss of custody of her first child on the same day she gave birth to her second. It offers insight into Mailhot's struggle with her mental health, including PTSD and bipolar disorder. It explores her experience after committing herself to a mental institution following a breakdown.{{cite news |last1=Rooney |first1=Kathleen |title=Review: 'Heart Berries' — Terese Marie Mailhot's searing memoir of Native American experience |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/sc-books-heart-berries-terese-marie-mailhot-0207-story.html# |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=The Chicago Tribune |date=February 2, 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Sehgal |first1=Parul |title='Heart Berries' Shatters a Pattern of Silence |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/books/review-heart-berries-terese-marie-mailhot.html |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=January 30, 2018}} It was there that she began writing Heart Berries, according to an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "In those spaces of mental health, there weren't any First Nations counsellors and there weren't any people who understand genocide and what it looks like to come from a culture that has thrived in spite of so much." She then turned to her writing as "a way to avoid my workbook and group therapy … but ultimately writing the truth of what I experienced was something kind of shocking".{{cite news |title='I'd never written about my abuse as truth, I'd always fictionalized it': Terese Marie Mailhot on her memoir |url=https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/are-we-in-the-midst-of-a-new-native-renaissance-1.4831702/within-all-those-stereotypes-is-a-real-story-terese-marie-mailhot-on-her-memoir-heart-berries-1.4833334 |access-date=September 26, 2018 |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |date=September 21, 2018}}

The book explores Mailhot's familial connections with her mother, father, and grandmother, her mother's habit of bringing predatory men into the lives of her family, and her father's reckless lawlessness, culminating eventually in his own violent death. It also follows her growing relationship with writer Casey Gray, the white man who would become her second husband, and thematically, at once "a figure of the beloved and a symbol of persecution". After reading Heart Berries himself, Grey comments that, "It did kind of open up and help me understand her more and the depth of what she's gone through and frankly the hurt I caused her," he says. "It was really beautiful and really hard to read, frankly. And I knew it was powerful and I knew it was amazing."{{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-writer-terese-marie-mailhots-journey-from-devastation-to-voice-of-a/|title=Writer Terese Marie Mailhot's journey from devastation to voice of a generation|access-date=2019-03-22}}

The afterword for the book is a question and answer session between Mailhot and Inupiaq American poet Joan Naviyuk Kane.

Terese Marie Mailhot's mother, Karen Joyce Bobb Wahzinak, was featured as a character in Paul Simon's play.what play? Terese Marie Mailhot's father Ken Paquette starred in a documentary Hope which was directed by filmmakers Stuart Reaugh and Thomas Buchan.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nfb.ca/distribution/film/hope|title=NFB/distribution – National Film Board of Canada|website=www.nfb.ca|access-date=2019-03-13}}

The Los Angeles Times described Heart Berries as "poetic, urgent, short, brutal and at times darkly humorous".{{cite news |last1=Castenada |first1=Vera |title=The art of a revealing memoir: Terese Marie Mailhot and 'Heart Berries' |url=http://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-terese-marie-mailhot-20180601-story.html |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 1, 2018}} The New York Times described it as "a sledgehammer", and although perhaps lacking in some focus, ultimately determined "give me narrative power and ambition over tidiness any day." Writing in The Guardian, Diana Evans dubbed the book "startling", and full of,

...raw and ragged pain, the poisonous effects of sexual abuse, of racial cruelty, of violence and self-harm and drug addiction. But it is not without a wry, deadpan humour and clever derision. Its quiet rage is directed outwards towards the intangible yet definitive (white supremacy, male supremacy), the unjust shape of the world, while a deep tenderness and empathy are shown to those who share in the author's vulnerability...{{cite news |last1=Evans |first1=Diana |author-link1=Diana Evans |title=Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot review – a raw, rich indigenous memoir |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/04/heart-berries-by-terese-marie-mailhot-review |access-date=26 September 2018 |work=The Guardian |date=August 4, 2018}}

The Atlantic's Joe Fassler criticized the book's lack of exposition, writing that it "does everything it technically shouldn't, brushing off the familiar regimen prescribed by MFA programs, and slipping the strictures of commercial publishing." However, he continues, that "the thrilling part is, it works," and in the end is "a reminder that, in the right hands, literature can do anything it wants."{{cite news |last1=Fassler |first1=Joe |title=The Necessity of 'Willful Blindness' in Writing |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/the-necessity-of-willful-blindness-in-writing/553211/ |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=The Atlantic |date=February 14, 2018}} The Star Tribune similarly noted the unique style of the work, describing it as having an effect that is both "spooky and powerful," but adding that, "although many critics have described this book with stuttering superlatives, readers will differ on whether it is poetic or incoherent, brilliant self-examination or wordy narcissism."{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Pamela |title=Review: 'Heart Berries,' by Terese Marie Mailhot |url=http://www.startribune.com/review-heart-berries-by-terese-marie-mailhot/486195491/ |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=Star Tribune |date=June 29, 2018}}

As of April 2018, Heart Berries had reached number 14 on The New York Times Best Seller list in the hardback non-fiction category.{{cite web |title=Hardcover Nonfiction |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2018/04/01/hardcover-nonfiction/ |website=The New York Times Best Seller list |access-date=September 26, 2018 |date=April 1, 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Bangert |first1=Dave |title=Bangert: Terese Mailhot makes best-seller list, second Purdue author to do it in past year |url=https://www.jconline.com/story/opinion/columnists/dave-bangert/2018/03/23/bangert-terese-mailhot-makes-best-seller-list-second-purdue-author-do-past-year/453868002/ |access-date=September 26, 2018 |publisher=Journal & Courier |date=March 23, 2018}} It was a finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, with the winner to be announced on November 7, 2018.{{cite news |last1=Dundas |first1=Deborah |title=Elizabeth Hay, Terese Marie Mailhot, and more on shortlist for $60,000 Writers' Trust Nonfiction prize |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2018/09/19/elizabeth-hay-terese-marie-mailhot-and-more-on-shortlist-for-60000-writers-trust-nonfiction-prize.html |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=Toronto Star |date=September 19, 2018}} It was also named one of the best non-fiction books of 2018 by TIME,{{cite news|title=The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 So Far |url=https://time.com/5308332/best-nonfiction-books-2018-so-far/ |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=Time |date=June 11, 2018}} and reached number 10 on the Toronto Star's best seller list for Canadian non-fiction.{{cite news |title=Toronto star bestsellers for the week ending March 17 |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2018/03/15/toronto-star-bestsellers-for-the-week-ending-march-17.html |access-date=September 26, 2018 |work=Toronto Star |date=March 15, 2018}}

• There There (novel), 2018 debut novel by Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange

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{{Wikiquote|Heart Berries}}

• {{URL|teresemailhot.com|Terese Mailhot's official website}}
• {{cite book|last=Mailhot|first=Terese Marie|title=Heart Berries: A Memoir|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bYktDwAAQBAJ|date=February 13, 2018|publisher=Counterpoint|isbn=978-1-61902-423-6|via=Google Books}}
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5busoO0KLqM Interview] with Trevor Noah of The Daily Show, July 4, 2018
• [https://www.npr.org/2018/02/11/584643934/in-heart-berries-an-indigenous-woman-s-chaotic-coming-of-age Interview] with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of National Public Radio, February 11, 2018

Category:Canadian memoirs

Category:2018 non-fiction books

Category:Books about indigenous peoples

Category:Counterpoint (publisher) books