It was heartbreaking to think a little girl was holding this secret in for years because of the shame and guilt. No person should ever be disrespected and violated in that manner, certainly not a child. There is so much of me that feels so sympathetic towards her. She goes into great detail about her life at such a large size. I was miserable, but I was safe.” She ended up at 6'3 and at her heaviest was 577 pounds. I was trapped in my body, one I made but barely recognized or understood but of my own making. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. “I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. She wanted to make herself as undesirable as possible, so that she could feel safe. She kept this trauma as a secret for a very long time. One day the boy she had a crush on led her into the woods, where they met up with his friends. They proceeded to gang rape her. The plot (again, STOP reading if you want to be totally surprised): Roxane led a fairly normal and happy life until she was 12. Equally as impressive was the manner through which she did. It takes tremendous guts to share such personal experiences and address the challenging topics she did so in her book. Before I get into the grit of this post, I want to acknowledge how brave I think Roxane Gay was to bare her soul so vulnerably. "Hunger" was the kind of book where after you read it, you're like, omgsh, I need to talk to someone. It certainly won't ruin the experience of reading it yourself if you know the plot prior, but in case you want to be totally surprised - stop reading this post now! :) Many of my thoughts about this book cannot be addressed without discussing the plot. So when I was state-side I went to Barnes & Noble, and purchased it. It's not the typical book I would have chosen, but I was looking for materials to assist in the demographic and brand research for one of the companies I do copywriting for, and this fit the bill. She finds the purest way to say what she needs to say… he writing is so good it’s hard not to temporarily be distracted from the content or narrative by its brilliance…Perhaps, because this author so generously allows us to be her witness, we are somehow able to see ourselves more clearly and become better witnesses to ourselves.I heard of "Hunger," by Roxane Gay because I saw someone that I work with post about how great she thought the book was on Instagram. I have always been terrified and in awe of the power of words – but Mailhot does not let them silence her in Heart Berries. “I am quietly reveling in the profundity of Mailhot’s deliberate transgression in Heart Berries and its perfect results. 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. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn’t exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. 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.
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. Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest. Here is a mountain woman, towering in words great and small… What Mailhot has accomplished in this exquisite book is brilliance both raw and refined.” -Roxane Gay, author of Hunger “ Heart Berries by Terese Mailhot is an astounding memoir in essays. are in the service of trying to find new ways to think about the past, trauma, repetition and reconciliation, which might be a way of saying a new model for the memoir.” -Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Her experiments with structure and language. Selected by Emma Watson as the Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick for March/April 2018įinalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for English-Language NonfictionĪ Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection