The Story Was There for the Telling: An Exclusive Guest Post from Amanda Peters, Author of The Berry Pickers
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A profoundly moving novel told from the alternating point of view of two siblings, this is the story of a Mi’kmaq girl gone missing and the lasting effect it has on her family. Inspired by family stories and written in exacting prose, this gorgeous narrative will linger long after you put it down. Keep reading for a guest post about the inspiration behind Amanda Peters’ debut novel, The Berry Pickers.
A profoundly moving novel told from the alternating point of view of two siblings, this is the story of a Mi’kmaq girl gone missing and the lasting effect it has on her family. Inspired by family stories and written in exacting prose, this gorgeous narrative will linger long after you put it down. Keep reading for a guest post about the inspiration behind Amanda Peters’ debut novel, The Berry Pickers.
In my debut novel, The Berry Pickers, a young Mi’kmaq girl named Ruthie is kidnapped from the blueberry fields of Maine where she spends her summers with her family. Her brother Joe, only six years old, is the last person to see her, and carries that guilt with him for the rest of his life, leading him to a life of solitude and reflection. Meanwhile in Maine, Norma grows up in a quiet and secretive family, never really feeling as though she belongs.
The novel was inspired by the stories told to me by my father, Leonard Peters. When he was young, my grandparents would pack up the kids in the summer and head to Maine to pick berries. When I started writing, he encouraged me to write about the berry pickers. At first, I was resistant, but when we went on a father-daughter road trip to Maine, he showed me the fields and told me so many stories — some sad, some violent, most filled with joy. The first line “The day that Ruthie went missing, the blackflies seemed to be especially hungry,” came to me, and I had no choice. The story was there for the telling. It started to unspool, and I couldn’t ignore it.
While the story is fiction, I believe there is truth hidden inside it. A mentor once told me that there is nothing truer than fiction and I believe this because when we write fiction, we are exploring humanity in all its faults and glory. I find that, in any good story, people will find a few nuggets of truth and something that they can relate to. I named a character after my grandfather, Chief Joseph Peters. My dad tells a very funny story about a man who was afraid of bears, and I based the character Frankie on him. And even though The Berry Pickers is a work of fiction, my favourite thing about having this story out into the world is that people are telling me how they relate to it. And that brings me joy, that people can find personal meaning in something I created.
Originally, I had intended to write the book from the perspective of only Joe but Norma became a voice in my head demanding to tell her story, so I relented and I’m glad I did. I find a lot of Norma in myself. Her struggle with being unsure of who she is the same struggle I have being a woman of mixed race trying to find my standing in the world. I can relate to her journey to find out who she really is. For me, the writing of this novel has been such a defining moment in my own search for who I really am in a world that insists on categorization. In the end, Norma wants to feel like she belongs somewhere, and this book has helped me find that space as well.