The Berry Pickers

 

Yesterday I finished The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. I read it on Libby. This is a debut novel for this author. I read a rather lengthy review in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette which is why I searched it out on Libby. 

After a prologue, the story starts out in 1962 with a Mi'kmaq Indian family of seven from Nova Scotia picking berries in Maine. They have been doing this regularly during the summers. Ruthie, the 4-year-old, disappears one day. The other pickers help to search the nearby woods and near the lakeshore. The property owner makes it clear that they need to return to work. The local police have no interest in the case since these are just transients in the area and not even U.S. citizens. The girl's family continues the search when they can, but she is not found, not even a body is found. They return to Nova Scotia with one less child and haunting guilt that they did not protect her. 

The narrative is done in alternating chapters by Joe, Ruthie's brother who was 6 years old when she disappeared and the last person to have seen her, and by Norma. It is pretty obvious that Norma must be the abducted Ruthie. I had a little trouble buying into the premise that a 4-year-old would not be insistent on being taken to her mother and family. However, Ruthie is presented as a quiet passive child. Her "new" mother isolates her. Norma is not allowed to play outside with the neighborhood children. She persists in telling her mother and father and her aunt that she has memories of another life and family, but they over time try to convince her that these are dreams. The pieces of her life, especially her early years, don't seem to fit, and she struggles with her identity. 

Joe's story is one of heavy drinking, uncontrolled anger, and poor choices that eventually cause him to abandon his family (which now includes a wife) and strike out on his own to make a living far away. 

A few times Norma hears or sees things that make her believe she might be adopted. When she asks questions, her mother has debilitating headaches and no answers are given. It is not until after her father and mother die that her aunt comes forward with the true story. Norma is in her fifties by then. She ended her marriage after losing a still-born daughter. Her mother had talked about her miscarriages often, and Norma did not want to have any more children who had to compare to the ghost babies like she was made to do as a child. Her husband wanted more children. 

Her Indian mother never gave up hope that Ruthie was alive somewhere. She also never gave up on Joe, praying that he would return to his family. 

It is a tale of family bonds that will never dissolve and hopes that won't die. There are some other tragic events the family must adjust around. Ruthie's disappearance changed the dynamics within the family as does what happens later to the son Charlie. 

 The author's father was indigenous, and she shares some of the culture of the Indians. There was blatant prejudice against Indians, insults, attempts by the Canadian government to take children from their parents and have them live in boarding schools (an unsuccessful attempt in this family). 

Joe finally finds some emotional healing and returns to Nova Scotia. He is dying from cancer. He is being cared for by his brother Ben and sister Mae in his mother's home. His father died while he was away. It has been 50 years since Ruthie disappeared. 

The book has a bittersweet ending. There are some reunions, but lost decades cannot be restored.