Heart Berries

Book, 2018

Premise - The memoir of Terese Marie Mailhot, a Native Canadian writer. Terese writes about how her painful experiences with bipolar disorder as an Indian woman and a victim of childhood sexual trauma dramatically influenced her relationships with herself, other people, and the world.

Review -  My reasoning for reading this book was two-fold. First, it was recommended by Emma Watson's book club "Our Shared Shelf" earlier this year. And second, my local library has a reading challenge where we can read from 10 different categories and win a prize. One category that I had difficulty filling was to read a book from a Native author. (Okay, I cheated a bit, as the author is supposed to be Native American. I saw that Terese was from the Pacific Northwest and assumed that meant within American borders, but I suppose she is actually Native Canadian. Then again, she did attend the Institute of American Indian Arts, so I stand by my choice to read it).

Emma Watson gave a raving review of this memoir, and I was incredibly excited to read it. Of all the books I have read for "Our Shared Shelf" so far (ahem, only 3...) this was by far my least favorite, and the biggest letdown. I have to be careful here because this is definitely not to say anything against the writer's choices or experiences, but rather my personal taste.

I'm paraphrasing here, but the introduction said something along the lines of "[Terese] was wounded and wanted to wound." That is the best way I can describe this memoir. The style of the memoir is written in short, jabbing sentences, as if each is supposed to cut through you with a knife. It reads far more like poetry than prose, as if each individual sentence could be its own line, or even each serve as isolated quotes. I listened to this novel as an audiobook, and it almost felt like I was listening to slam poetry. Each sentence only felt loosely connected to the last. This brings me back to my argument about personal taste. Her writing style here is clearly intentional, as I think back again to the imagery of someone making multiple, quick stab wounds. She succeeded at her intention.

Something I have yet to discuss is the actual content of the memoir, which I absolutely loved. I hate to say this because it sounds like I'm pathologizing her, and I mean this in the sweetest way possible, but she reminds me of so many patients I have worked with in mental health institutions, particularly those with trauma. I loved hearing about her experiences with hospitalizations and therapists, and what went wrong or right. I had so much respect for hearing about her experiences, trauma, symptoms, and reflections on her own diagnoses. She helped remind me why I am in the field I am in, and what is so great about the particular populations that I have worked with in the past (namely, women, often with depression, personality disorders, and/or trauma). She writes with a raw honesty - uncensored, and yet almost paradoxically stylistic.

The one aspect that deterred from my personal enjoyment of this memoir was her seemingly wanting to inflict pain on her readers. I mentioned this before in the artistic style, but I think there are traces of that in her content as well. The one example I will give is her ladybug story. She had dealt with a ladybug infestation in the past, and now whenever she sees a ladybug, she kills it, though people shame her for this needless violence. When I read it, she seemed to say that people only shamed her for killing ladybugs because she didn't understand the pain she had experienced. There was an unspoken justification for her actions, whether she was aware of it or not. A group of ladybugs had hurt her in the past, so therefore she has the reason to kill all ladybugs. This seems trivial in the context of ladybugs, but think about it in the context of, say, a race. White people inflicted so much pain on this woman, without a doubt. Men inflicted pain on her. And though nothing may have been overtly said, I think she applied the same ladybug logic here as well. On the other hand, I think she is well aware of the effect of her words and does not mind that they are not necessarily tasteful. This is her true story, showcasing even the ugly sides of herself (48/100).

Quote - "I felt the sticky notes of my lips pull apart from his. The right love is an adhesive."

If you liked this book, I'd recommend Persepolis!

Written by Terese Marie Mailhot
Published by Counterpoint