Principal personages
Ruthie, a four-year-old child who goes missing
Joe, her next older brother, who was six when she disappeared; one of the main narrators
Mae, her older sister
Ben, her oldest brother
Dad, a.k.a. Lewis, her father, a migrant worker and hunter
Mom, her mother
Norma, a woman who has always questioned her life; one of the main narrators
Mother, a.k.a. Lenore, her mother, a neurotic and controlling homemaker
Father, a.k.a. Frank, her father, an emotionally distant judge
Alice, her counselor, a family friend and professional therapist
Aunt June, her mother’s sister
Amanda Peters has been acclaimed for her writing about Indigenous issues, and she herself is part Mi’kmaq, a member of the Glooscap First Nation. In 2021, she won the Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose in English. The Berry Pickers, her debut novel, won the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Peters the first Canadian so honored.
The Berry Pickers’ first-person narration quickly pulls readers into the main characters’ lives, experiencing events from their point of view. It chronicles the lives of two very different families: a Mi’kmaq family that travels between their home in Nova Scotia and Maine, their lives changing with the seasons’ work, and an upper-middle-class White family living in Maine. The novel is structured in chapters that alternate just about evenly between Joe, a member of the former family, and Norma, from the latter. Eight chapters are narrated by the adult Joe, who shares the story of his younger sister’s disappearance and his life thereafter through mostly chronological glimpses into his past interspersed with his present-day life in a sick bed. Seven chapters are narrated by Norma, who tells her life story in the past tense, remembering it from some point later in her life.
Throughout the novel, Peters skillfully illustrates the varied ways people deal with grief. As Joe is one of the main narrators, his experiences stand out clearly. After his four-year-old sister, Ruthie, disappears, six-year-old Joe, who is the last to see her, is wracked with guilt. In his child’s mind, he is responsible for the disappearance, and he feels he should have been watching her more closely. When the family leaves the berry fields where they have been working that first summer following Ruthie’s disappearance, Joe looks back and thinks, “I just knew we were leaving Ruthie behind.” This mindset is reinforced when he is a little older and a second tragedy hits the family. An if-only mantra runs through his mind, condemning him to a lifetime of anger, self-punishment, and isolation. What Joe does not take come to terms with for decades is that his behavior as a child was the result of circumstances over which he had no control and of inexpressible grief that he could not comprehend.
Norma, the second main narrator, also struggles with grief over which she has no control. Crucially, this includes a burden of grief from her mother. When Norma reaches adulthood and a similar tragedy strikes her, Norma rejects her mother’s tendency for denial as a coping mechanism. Instead, she separates herself from the person who needs her most and, like Joe, self-punishes.
The parents of each family are specifically affected by grief and loss too. Peters shows the mothers in the story dealing with grief in completely different ways from each other. Joe and Ruthie’s mother turns to family, loving and continuing to care for the children who are present. Her home is nurturing, though she still grieves. The clearest symbol of her grief over the loss of her youngest daughter is a small pair of boots she keeps on a shelf in case Ruthie returns. Norma’s mother, in contrast, becomes neurotic after numerous miscarriages. As the novel progresses, Norma realizes the lengths her mother took to have a child and is challenged to forgive. The fathers contrast as well, with Joe’s father continuing to create love and laughter for his family despite his own sadness whereas Norma’s father drowns himself in work while excusing his wife’s actions even though he knows she is wrong.
The different ways family can be defined and function is another central concern in the novel. Despite having a strong family background and an otherwise happy childhood, Ruthie’s disappearance breaks something in Joe, and he spends the rest of his life looking for what is missing. As a result, he engages in destructive behaviors and leaves those who love him in a misguided effort to protect them from himself. Despite his actions, his parents and siblings continue to watch out for him. Joe’s siblings Mae and Ben are also torn by Ruthie’s disappearance, but as adults they take responsibility for their parents and later for Joe.
Norma, in contrast, has no siblings; she has only her parents, her Aunt June, and Alice, her counselor. Norma’s mother clings to her only child, overprotecting her and often confining her to a dark house and the backyard to both keep her away from others and to keep the child to herself. Norma only begins to feel like a normal young woman when Alice, a very close friend of her Aunt June, counsels her. Further, unlike the campfire gatherings in Joe’s life, Norma watches the rest of her family from the sidelines, not feeling as though she truly belongs. As an adult, Norma recalls, “I remember understanding . . . that my house was not my house. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. No one was who they were supposed to be.”
Alongside these universal themes of family, Peters also brings to light a variety of issues affecting Indigenous people in particular. Migrant work is the most obvious, as Joe’s family moves from place to place based on the season. During the summers, the family travels to Maine to pick blueberries. During the off-season, they live in Nova Scotia, where Joe’s father and sometimes his older brothers act as a guide for hunters who want an “authentic Indian” guide. Joe’s own turn at performatively playing Indian comes when he is fifteen. His father teaches him to stay quiet and feign a lack of English, telling him, “They tip you better if you speak the [Mi’kmaw] language out here in the woods. It doesn’t need to make sense; you just need to throw some of the words together.” Years later, Joe and Mae remember the hunting trips, Joe with a sense of bitterness and Mae with a sense of practicality, reminding him, “Dad only fooled a few morons so we could eat.”
Peters incorporates the history of government interference in Indigenous family life as well, with references to boarding school and social services. Two of Joe’s older siblings are sent to residential boarding school for a time. Soon after their family tragedy, the Indian agent visits, intent to remove the other children. The social worker notes, “I’ve come to talk about the others. About what’s best for them, in light of what happened.” While their father’s bold willingness to stand up for his family keeps Joe and Charlie from being taken, the episode is a sharp reminder of the devastating separations faced by many similar families.
Reviews of The Berry Pickers were largely positive, with many critics commending Peters’s work as a debut novelist. An unsigned review for the New Yorker called it “lucid and assured,” the critic for Publishers Weekly described it as “enthralling,” and the Kirkus Reviews critic used the phrase “quiet and poignant.” Critics generally found much to admire in Peters’s treatment of the major thematic issues. The Publishers Weekly reviewer, for instance, praised one of the final scenes as a “cogent and heartfelt look at the ineffable pull of family ties.” The Kirkus Reviews critic similarly complimented Peters’s description of family, remarking that the novel “beautifully explores loss, grief, hope, and the invisible tether that keeps families intact even when they are ripped apart.” Reviewers also applauded Peters’s handling of Indigenous issues and identity. Writing for Booklist, Emily Dziuban noted, “Indigenous stories like this matter, and while little is easy for Peters’ characters, in the end, for all of them . . . there is hope.” Eric Nguyen acknowledged this as well in a review for the New York Times: “With The Berry Pickers, Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mi’kmaw ancestors.”
Views on the plotting were more varied, however. The New Yorker reviewer critiqued its relative predictability, suggesting that “The story has an inevitability to it,” though conceding that “Peters’ writing can surprise.” Nguyen concurred, saying, “Peters can be heavy-handed, and it is frustratingly clear . . . that something is amiss with Norma’s parentage.” Nguyen also lamented Peters’s use of “dei ex machina to move the plot forward,” finding the clues are too obvious and convenient to be believable. Yet other reviewers, including Dziuban and the Washington Post’s Marion Winik, noted the book is never intended to be a mystery story. Dziuban in fact wrote glowingly that the author “combines narrative skill and a poignant story for a wonderful novel to which many readers will gravitate.” She concluded, “The story is told in braided strands, and it is a testament to Peter’s ability that both strands fascinate.”