Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
The Berry Pickers
The Berry Pickers is a novel that begins with the disappearance of a young Mi'kmaq girl in 1960s Maine and moves between the perspectives of Joe and Norma as buried family secrets come to light. Loss, memory, and the search for identity unfold in a quiet but emotionally forceful story.
Work Information
The memory of a missing child and the family secrets that surface years later meet in a story that keeps widening in scope.
The Berry Pickers follows the aftermath of a young girl's disappearance in 1960s blueberry fields, moving between the remaining family and Norma, whose life is shaped by memories she cannot fully explain. In a quiet, compassionate voice, it traces Mi'kmaq family history and long-buried secrets.
Review Summaries
-
Readers value the way the novel slowly opens up an emotional story through two alternating viewpoints. Many praise it for moving beyond the mystery of the disappearance to give careful attention to grief and family bonds.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Catapult
- Published
- 2023-10-31
- Pages
- 307 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.66 x 2.77 x 23.52 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781646221950
- ISBN-10
- 1646221958
- Price
- 6195 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Coming of Age
NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Winner Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years "A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness." — People , A Best New Book July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light , this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time. "A harrowing tale of Indigenous family separation . . . [Peters] excels in writing characters for whom we can’t help rooting . . . With The Berry Pickers , Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mi’kmaw ancestors." — The New York Times Book Review
AMANDA PETERS is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers is the Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discovery Prize Winner, and was shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year and the Atwood Gibson Fiction Award from the Writers Trust of Canada. Her work has also appeared in the Antigonish Review , Grain Magazine , the Alaska Quarterly Review , the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station Magazine . She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars program. Amanda is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto.
Reviews
-
Telling a good story seems to be going out of fashion, so it was a true pleasure to read this thoughtful book. I will say no more because to do so with any meaning would spoil the pleasure of reading. If you enjoy a good story, written well, you should read this.
-
Amanda Peters has a beautiful writing style. This book is a gem and lands directly in my top reads next to Barbara Kingsolvers Poisonwood Bible and my favorite Dutch author J. Bernlef.
-
I loved everything about this book! Living in Nova Scotia, there was the added fun of having place names that I was so familiar with. The story itself is very interesting. The author did an excellent job of painting the picture of this family in my mind. I could "see and hear" every character very clearly. The pacing was wonderful, everything well set out and I didn't want to put it down. The author has a way of making it an easy read, but at the same time presenting material that makes you think deeply about it all. That's quite a talent.
-
Excelentes condiciones, muy cuidado el empaquetado y llegó sin ningún problema :D. Muchas gracias!
-
Das Buch ist authentisch und missreisend, tolle Handlung und ein schöner und klarer Schreibstil! Sehr zu empfehlen, gerne mehr davon!