In The Berry Pickers, the debut novel from Indigenous author Amanda Peters, parallel stories span the lifetimes of a Mi'kmaq woman, kidnapped as a toddler, and the families who love her. A poignant quest for truth and an equally determined coverup of a grievous wrong play out over decades, ultimately resolving in peace and forgiveness. Fifty years after the day in 1962 that his sister Ruthie went missing, Joe recalls the typical summer that brought his Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia to pick Maine blueberries. With no clues and a cursory police response, the four-year-old's disappearance remained a mystery--and a heartbreak for her family.
Chapters from Joe's point of view alternate with those of Norma's. Raised in an overprotective, affluent Maine home, Norma feels "watched, guarded like a secret," and recalls childhood dreams of a brother, a friend named Ruthie, and a comforting woman "cloaked in darkness." It is apparent early in The Berry Pickers that Norma is Ruthie, which does not detract from the story's suspense. Though the couple who snatched her from the berry field are never sympathetic, Norma questions her past yet remains dutifully loyal to her parents. Familial love is a constant theme: Norma's mother's desperation for a child is echoed by Ruthie's mother's grief at the loss of hers. When Norma has a stillborn daughter, she muses, "no word exists for a parent who loses a child," unaware of the irony of her words. Norma and her Mi'kmaq family eventually find truth and healing in this compelling, poignant novel of loss and hope. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.