The Berry Pickers a Moving Novel

 

 

 

The Berry Pickers (2023)

By Amanda Peters

Catapult Books, 303 pages.

★★★★

 

The Berry Pickers is a tale of loss and of people trying to find their way home. The latter journey entails getting back to Nova Scotia by way of Maine, Boston, and Saskatchewan.

 

This superb debut novel by Amanda Peters begins in 1962; that is before the Sixties became the Sixties. But she doesn't stop there; hers is a saga that spans 50 years before it resolves. The title is meant to be taken literally. The home away from home is the Ellis farm near Bangor, Maine. It serves as a vivid and poignant fulcrum for a story that involves the migrant workers who pluck blueberries from the bushes. The owners live in a columned white house, while their seasonal laborers, though well-treated, reside in a much humbler facility. The migrants that concern us come from the family of Lewis and Kiju, Mi’kmaw Indians from Nova Scotia, and their children: Charlie, Ben, Joe, and Ruthie.

 

Four-year-old Ruthie is a spirited and carefree child. Her family are faithful workers, but being Indian is not a good thing in rural Maine during the early 1960s. As children, Ruthie and six-year-old brother Joe have more free time. Joe is supposed to keep his eye on Ruthie, but as they are playing near Ruthie’s favorite big rock, Joe’s attention briefly waivers, and Ruthie disappears. Owners and workers alike join Ruthie's family in trying to find her, though local law enforcement isn't all that concerned. Where is she? Lost in the woods? Dragged off by animals? Injured? A victim of foul play? Each year the family returns to the Ellis farm to work and seek new clues of Ruthie's fate. Such is the depth of their loss that they carry with them Ruthie's tiny boots and her favorite doll. Joe blames himself for what happened.

 

Their sorrow parallels that of Frank and Lenore, who are desperate to have a child. Lenore impulsively abducts a toddler and her ineffectual husband covers for her. The girl is named Norma and has a comfortable life, though she’s nearly smothered by her mother’s helicopter parenting. Norma is very bright, but each time she seeks to spread her wings, Lenore comes down with a crippling migraine. Norma suffers from troubling dreams and wonders why she's darker than immediate relatives.

 

You don't need higher math to add 1 + 1 on the setup, but Peters’ gift is to show the depth of damage done through pain, prejudice, and misplaced good intentions. Norma’s only ally is her aunt June, who connects her to Alice, a counselor who helps her deal with her anguish. June and Alice have secrets of their own, but Alice’s mentoring helps Norma gain a degree of independence–but only a degree. She attends college in Boston where she lives with her aunt June, though she's also protective of Norma. When her 19-year-old niece wanders into an Indian rally in Boston–this is the time of the American Indian Movement and “red power”–June forcibly pulls her away when a young man seeks to talk with her.

 

The novel is told mostly through the point of view of either Joe or Norma. As the calendar flips forward, Joe carries the additional burden of Charlie's death. Joe's guilt turns to anger, simmers, and boils. His downward spiral sends him on a wayward journey. In essence he becomes an adult runaway, occasionally helped and often scorned. As for Norma, she becomes an English teacher and a wife, though her marriage unravels.  

 

Peters will eventually return us to Nova Scotia. Her resolution is a take on the Biblical adage “you will know the truth and it will set you free,” but its more complicated than a gift-wrapped ending. I admired the deftness with which Peters structured a novel in which we largely know what happened but must wait to find out what it meant. Without resorting to heavy-handed preaching or delving deeply into countercultural sloganeering, Peters ripped the veneer off of postwar biases. Peters is of also of Mi’kmaw heritage, and The Berry Pickers quietly diverts our ethnic gaze from the macro level to how it plays out in two families who must learn from each other. Like Maine blueberries, such interactions are fragile and are best handled softly.

 

Rob Weir