2024 Book Review #21: The Berry Pickers

 

Well I got lucky last week.  I was returning a book to the library in town and  saw that they were featuring "Just Released" books on the New Fiction bookshelves. This one caught my eye as the author is new to me.  It's her debut novel.  It's set in Nova Scotia, other parts of mid-western Canada, and Maine and a little bit in Boston.  All places I love or want to get to.  Nova Scotia has been on my bucket list for years as has Alberta, Canada. Even the description of the author is one that made me think 'gee...I'd love to meet her sometime!".  Anyways, this novel is a "Sticks with you when it's over" kind of book.  In the last 2 years, there have been a few other books that did that for me:  When the World Turns Blue, Our Missing Hearts, A Gentleman in Moscow, The Mountains Sing, and The Four Winds.  (If you click on the titles, it will bring you to my reviews.  In 2014, ten years ago, I read one that has stuck with me even to this day:  The Book Thief.  

I read a lot of fiction. I have at least one book going all the time, on top of whatever Bible study book I'm reading or personal spiritually uplifting non fiction book, or memoir. (Obama's Grace is still sticking with me!!)   Rarely does a book really stick with me. I know there've been others over the last 25 years....and further back into my young adulthood and teen years...and even as a child reader (The Secret Garden for one!).  This is one of those books. Well done.  I'm hoping the author has plans for more. 

STORY SUMMARY

It's July 1962. A Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia have arrived in northern Maine to work in the blueberry fields picking berries for a local farm.  They stay for the entire summer. In late August, the youngest child, a little girl named Ruthie, has disappeared. She's only 4 years old. Her 6 year old brother, Joe, was the last person to see her. She had been sitting on a rock at the edge of the berry field. This affects Joe for the rest of his life. Left behind are the mother, father, big brother Ben, big sister Mae, Charlie and Joe. And then Charlie dies in a horrible brutal attack.  The family is never the same. 

Meanwhile, in Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of a wealthy family.  Lenore and Frank are helicopter parents before the term was popular. Lenore and Frank love Norma to the point where she feels stifled. Her father is very emotionally distant and her mother is just so overprotective. Norma, though, is often troubled by this recurrent dream and visions she sees...they seem more like memories but her mother insists they're just her imagination or nightmares/dreams. As Norma gets older, she begins to realize that there is something that her parents aren't telling her. She is not unwilling to just forget about her intuition so she will spend decades trying to uncover this family's secret. She knows her aunt June must know something.  Maybe Aunt June's partner, Alice, who acts as a "therapist" for Norma and encourages her to keep journals knows something as well.  One thing Norma has always wondered about and for which she has never received a solid answer, is that she is very dark-skinned, particularly in the summer months, and yet her parents are very white and pale. They claim her grandfather was Italian. Yet when she sees the family plots in the cemetery, she realizes the last name is NOT Italian. Did her parents lie to her? and what exactly does Aunt June know? 

MY THOUGHTS

This is a book with characters that are going to stick with me for awhile.  The characters are so well developed that I found it hard to believe this is the author's debut novel! I had to look up the type of American Indian group she wrote about. I had never heard of them. The pronunciation is "Mik-mak". Because I have some Native American blood in me from my dad's side of the family, I have always been drawn to books or movies about Native Americans, especially the tribes from the Northeast/Canada as dad's family came from France and down through Canada and his great grandfather married a Native American. 

I especially enjoyed the voice of Norma and then Joe. Each chapter alternates between their voices and the back story is interwoven with the present. It's so well done and I was never confused as to where in the life of each character I was. 

The setting is spot on!  I could almost smell the woodsmoke when the author was describing the family sitting around the firepit. I could just see in my mind's eye the bent backs of the berry pickers.  I love Maine and any book set in Maine just makes me fall in love with that state all over again. 

The main themes in this book are family relationships/the family bond, tragedy, grief, loss, guilt, betrayal, secrets/lies, traditional cultures of the Native American group depicted/their language, and the struggles of Indigenous families; forgiveness; love. 

I liked the description on the front jacket: "A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a family, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years" 

There is a persistence in both characters that I found important. This book really depicts well the trauma of missing children and how it affects everyone involved.  But it also depicts very well....in fact, it's outstanding....the persistence of love in the families and how it lasts throughout their life times.

There were three quotes that really jumped out at me: 

"All things take time.  Grief can be wide and feel bottomless sometimes, but eventually, it begins to subside, to grow into something useful........the need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery. " (pg 182, The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, c. 2023)

"Some secrets are so dark that it's best they remain buried. Even people who exude light and happiness have dark secrets." (pg 188)  

"It was good to witness nature doing what it does best, letting go, moving on." (pg 274).  

This book....just so excellent and refreshing after some ok but not super great mystery books I've read. This is a lot of family drama, some mystery....and a whole lot of love. It's just an all around good read! I highly recommend it. 

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older. 

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.