Author: Amanda Peters
The Berry Pickers is a fascinating book about love, grief, loss, and memory. The book shows how one tragic event can shape the lives of the whole family and how lives can fall apart with just one senseless act of selfishness. In this case, a little girl, Ruthie, is kidnapped from her family of berry pickers working hard whilst she sits on the rock eating a sandwich. The family never lets go of the memory of their daughter and sister, and through the book, we learn about the suffrage the loss has caused them. On the other hand, Ruthie – renamed to Norma – spends her childhood suffering from dreams about a family she does not think exists, but dreams are so real that she questions them even as a little girl. She grew up in a household of a judge and his wife, the homemaker who has lost several children through miscarriages, and the wife then kidnaps Ruthie/Norma and raises her as her own. However, kidnapping and the dreams Ruthie/Norma has caused grief and mental health issues; thus, she becomes a protective and neurotic mother. The book is written as a story of Joe, one of Ruthie’s brothers, who suffers from Ruthie’s disappearance the most because he was the last one to see her, and from the perspective of Ruthie/Norma, where her story is first labelled as Norma, and later as Ruthie, which was one of the poignant moments in the book.
What I have said so far is not a spoiler because everything is known from the start, and we know the book leads towards Norma/Ruthie realising who she is, so we wait to see how things play out. The happy ending is not guaranteed, but the book is written in a way that makes the reader cheer for Norma/Ruthie to figure out who she is and go back to her real family. Whilst the book attempts to be impartial and write objectively about the kidnapper’s family, I had no empathy whatsoever and could not feel anything about those people, even the cool aunt who supports Norma/Ruthie throughout her life, and who ends up only having Norma/Ruthie because she has no children. We also find out, early in the book, that Norma/Ruthie will find out who she is when her mother gets unwell, so we wait to see how she finds out and whether she finds her real family.
One thing that needs to be emphasised is that Norma/Ruthie is from a Native American family; however, the book calls Native Americans Indians, so I originally thought this book was about Indian Americans, but I thought Indians, the mindfulness people. So, initially, I did not think the book was well-written because whilst I make no claims to be an expert on Indian culture, I’ve met enough Indians in the UK and have lived and worked in two Indian areas in London so, I knew the way culture was described in this book did not make sense, e.g., sitting outside around the fire (a memory Norma/Ruthie often dreams about) and being one with the nature, etc. Indians from London, I knew, were running businesses, going to libraries, and arguing about cricket. Then, suddenly, the word Pocahontas gets mentioned, and I realised the book is about Native Americans, which made me realise the book is written beautifully. So, a word of caution for European and UK readers, this book talks about Native Americans; however, it uses the term Indian because it is centred in history when Indian was mainly used to describe Native Americans, which makes a lot of sense now, but it initially confused me.
The book is absolutely astonishing and make no mistake, I will read further books by Amanda Peters (who is also of Native American origin) and see how she (hopefully) continues to tell Native American stories.
What I particularly liked in The Berry Pickers is the interplay between Joe’s and Norma/Ruthie’s stories and the rich descriptions of the thoughts of both main characters about their lives. The stories are written from the characters’ point of view, so two characters are telling stories of their lives, starting from the kidnapping, which reads really well. What was also fascinating were the descriptions on how close they all were and the near-miss of finding one another in an event in Boston, as well as Norma/Ruthie living close to the place where she was kidnapped from, driving near the rock where she was sitting when she was kidnapped her whole life, whilst her real family kept coming during summers to work in berry fields and has never given up looking for her. Yet, it took a lifetime to figure things out…
Absolutely beautiful! Astonishing! Read The Berry Pickers!
Thank you for reading!