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 the reader 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.
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 the reader 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.
Here’s the
video: Trevor Noah interviews Terese Marie Mailhot
Here are
some questions by LitLovers and some of our thoughts (forgive my
memory, it is what it is and what I can recall)
1. Talk about the horror that was Terese Marie Mailhot’s
early years—a childhood marked with addiction, poverty, and abuse.
• We talked about mental illness being biological, or having a predisposition, or being the result of environmental trauma
• We talked about mental illness being biological, or having a predisposition, or being the result of environmental trauma
2. In what way is Mailhot’s story reflective of the way American Indians have suffered at the hands of white people?
• We are just beginning to understand the historic trauma
• Recommendation to see Dawnland in one of its
local screenings
3. In the essay “Indian Sick,” what are the multiple
diagnoses Mailhot receives in the hospital?
• We talked about this, too.
• We talked about this, too.
4. What is the significance of the title Heart Berries?
5. At one point, Mailhot quips, “Indian girls can be
forgotten so well they forget themselves.” She also writes that “no one wants
to know why Indian women leave or where they go.” Why does it seem that native
women are treated worse than white women? Is that what Mailhot is saying?
• We talked more about ceremony and ritual, comparing the difference in cultures, including the importance in Native American communities.
• We talked more about ceremony and ritual, comparing the difference in cultures, including the importance in Native American communities.
6. Does the process of writing her memoir generate for Mailhot a burgeoning sense of redemption? Does her story follow the typical arc from suffering to happiness … or not.
• We noticed that she had more perspective as she got better. Her partner went from being a big jerk to someone she is still with, as she understood herself and her role in the damage to the relationship.
7. In her afterward Q&A with Joan Naviyuk Kane, Mailhot insists that she doesn’t “feel liberated from the governing presence of tragedy.… [W]e are not liberated from injustice; we’re anchored to it.” What does she mean? Can anything reverse or correct the injustices done to indigenous people?
• We actually talked quite a bit through the evening on this topic. Some injustices are so great that they is no way they can ever be rectified and any story would feel false, if it didn’t include the injustice as part of the experience in this country.
Here are
some quotes
• “I learned to make a honey reduction of the ugly
sentences. Still my voice cracks.”
• “When you told me, I want too much I considered how much you take.”
• “I feel like my body is being drawn through a syringe.”
• “I felt breathless, like every question was a step up a stairway.”
• “Nothing is too ugly for this world I think it’s just that people pretend not to see.”
• “I woke up as the bones of my ancestors locked in government storage.”
• I won’t go on because I don’t want to ruin this book for you, but the writing is so good it’s hard not to temporarily be distracted from the content or narrative by its brilliance.
• In her first paragraph, Mailhot writes, “The words were too wrong and ugly to speak. I tried to tell someone my story, but he thought it was a hustle.” Space is needed for pain; people need to be believed and to be able to tell their stories.
• “When you told me, I want too much I considered how much you take.”
• “I feel like my body is being drawn through a syringe.”
• “I felt breathless, like every question was a step up a stairway.”
• “Nothing is too ugly for this world I think it’s just that people pretend not to see.”
• “I woke up as the bones of my ancestors locked in government storage.”
• I won’t go on because I don’t want to ruin this book for you, but the writing is so good it’s hard not to temporarily be distracted from the content or narrative by its brilliance.
• In her first paragraph, Mailhot writes, “The words were too wrong and ugly to speak. I tried to tell someone my story, but he thought it was a hustle.” Space is needed for pain; people need to be believed and to be able to tell their stories.
