Chang_Dear_Memory_web.png Screen_Shot_2021-10-20_at_11.33.45_AM.png Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief by Victoria Chang Dear Mother, I have so many questions...
Mamaskatch
As a small boy in remote Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod is immersed in his Cree family’s history, passed down in the stories of his mother, Bertha. There he is surrounded by her tales of joy and horror—of the strong men in their family, of her love for Darrel, and of the cruelty she and her sisters endured in residential school—as well as his many siblings and cousins, and the smells of moose stew and wild peppermint tea. And there young Darrel learns to be fiercely proud of his heritage and to listen to the birds that will guide him throughout his life.
But after a series of tragic losses, Bertha turns wild and unstable, and their home life becomes chaotic. Sweet and eager to please, Darrel struggles to maintain his grades and pursue interests in music and science while changing homes, witnessing domestic violence, caring for his younger siblings, and suffering abuse at the hands of his brother-in-law. Meanwhile, he begins to question and grapple with his sexual identity—a reckoning complicated by the repercussions of his abuse and his sibling’s own gender transition.
Thrillingly written in a series of fractured vignettes, and unflinchingly honest, Mamaskatch—“It’s a wonder!” in Cree—is a heartbreaking account of how traumas are passed down from one generation to the next, and an uplifting story of one individual who overcame enormous obstacles in pursuit of a fulfilling and adventurous life.
ISBN:
9781571313874 Publish Date:
06/11/2019
Pages:
256
Size:
8.5 × 5.5 × 0.75 in
Weight:
12.4 oz
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Praise and Prizes
"Affecting and full of heart . . . Through these fragmented stories, we see McLeod navigating conflicting desires within his sexual, spiritual, and native identities, and ultimately thriving."
BuzzFeed
“Mamaskatch is an absorbing read that brings together one gay Cree man’s experience, both within himself and with those around him.”
Book Marks
“Readers . . . will share in the secret knowledge that coming-of-age has little to do with losing one’s innocence and everything to do with maintaining one’s hope. Lyrically written and linked by family, compassion, forgiveness, and hope, Mamaskatch sings out as a modern day-celebrate of healing.”
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review
“[Mamskatch] spirals through vignettes that are by turns heart-wrenching and humorous, despairing and loving, and as they swirl together we see how McLeod makes his story complete and realizes order out of the chaos of his experiences.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"McLeod tells [his story] movingly and beautifully. It's a dark book, but a hopeful one too, as McLeod finds ways of understanding and coming to terms with his complicated life."
Book Riot
"A window into the world of the Cree . . . This is not your ordinary coming-of-age story; it's a multilayered account of a boy growing into manhood questioning his own gender identity while also confronting racism and bullying."
Library Journal
"Mamaskatch reminded me of my childhood and the Indigenous people I love dearly. The hard and brilliant life breathing on the pages brought me to tears, to joy, and to grace. Darrel J. McLeod tells a coming-of-age tale familiar to many Indigenous people, but our histories, and our families' truths, are mostly unwritten. The work he's doing is powerful and overdue."
Terese Marie Mailhot
author of Heart Berries
“A heart-wrenching mîwâsin memoir full of vignettes that are so intricately woven that they guide you through with grace, sâkihiwêwin, humour, and maskihkîy. This is a narrative built through continuums that detail the lives of the McLeod family through their queer travails, trans realities, bannock and stew conversations, and a plethora of intergenerational traumas and triumphs. I can feel the warm embrace of the Three Sisters wrapping around me as I read this, that heart-drum beat resounding beneath its literary cadences, the frigidity of the Athabasca kissing my heels, and a narrator who teaches me from his very first passage in this memoir that a good story is a medicine song that re-members and re-animates, in true nehiyawewin fashion, those who have paved the way for us and those for whom we pave.”
Joshua Whitehead
author of Jonny Appleseed
“Mamaskatch dares to immerse readers in provocative contemporary issues including gender fluidity, familial violence, and transcultural hybridity. A fast-moving, intimate memoir of dreams and nightmares—lyrical and gritty, raw and vulnerable, told without pity, but with phoenix-like strength.”
Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction
Jury Citation
“A profound and tender love song, an elegy to a wounded family, and an unsparing, exquisitely moving chronicle of growing up ‘Nehiyaw’ (Cree). Like the birdsong his mother taught him to understand, McLeod’s voice is magical; it will lift and carry you through bone-breaking grief with grit, optimism and wry, life-saving humour. You will not leave this book unchanged.”
Vancouver Sun
“Darrel McLeod’s book, Mamaskatch, tells a brutally honest, first-hand account of the consequences family and, in the broader sense, society has on the development of individual identity. In telling his story, Darrel provides a well written insight into the most beautiful and devastating parts of his life . . . Mamaskatch is a compelling read.”
Canadian Journal of Family and Youth
“A powerful, unflinching work of non-fiction, one that isn’t afraid to leave itself raw and unfinished, nodding to the stories that are yet to come. . . . The figures McLeod writes about in Mamaskatch shimmer in the best kind of way. . . . Nothing, however, appears as brightly or as darkly as Bertha. The parts of the book written from her perspective pulse with their own kind of intensity. . . . Mamaskatch embodies the recognition of the way stories can help to pull one through the darkest moments.” &
Quill & Quire
“Honestly stunning. McLeod’s clear writing lays bare his complicated ties to his family, his lovers and his country in a memoir that moved and haunted me.”
Eden Robinson
author of Son of a Trickster
“A compelling read that shows the heartbreaking results of imposed oppression. McLeod has identity problems of many kinds and the result is a life full of chaos. The gradual climb out of that dark place is touching.”
Bev Sellars
author of They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
“Reading the text was like diving into the eternity of dreams and being paralyzed by a nightmare. However, there is sunrise. Told candidly and with heartbreaking honesty, McLeod’s memoir shows how survival beckoned and he held on to the spirit of his ancestors—the love that no one can ever sever. He lives for all of us.”
Louise Bernice Halfe
author of Burning in this Midnight Dream
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