A powerful, devastating novel about family, belonging, and the agony of imagining the life you should have had, sparked by the disappearance of a four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl from the blueberry fields of Maine.
One family's darkest secret. Another family's deepest pain.
On a hot summer's day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields. Their family, Mi'kmaq people from Nova Scotia, are spending the summer there, picking fruit. Later that day, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. Joe was the last person to see her. For decades, he is haunted by grief, by guilt, and by the agony of imagining how his life could have been.
In an affluent, suburban town nearby, Norma is growing up as the only child of unhappy, emotionally distant parents. Norma is smart, precocious, and bursting with questions she isn't allowed to ask. Why are there no photos of her as a baby? Why is her skin so much darker than her white parents? And what is she to make of the strange, vivid dreams of campfires and warm embraces that return night after night?
Norma is bright enough to realise that there are things her parents aren't telling her. But the truth is far worse than she could have imagined. Because for Norma to understand who she really is, she will also have to confront the people who raised her, the terrible things they are capable of, and the secrets they have kept buried since she was a little girl.
The Berry Pickers is a powerful, devastating novel about family, belonging, regret, and the agony of imagining the life you should have had. But it's also an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and true connection - even when the bonds between us have all but disappeared.
