The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Publisher: Catapult
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 5 stars
Review by SnowdropJuly 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
Did you ever wonder why you didn’t look like the rest of your family? Maybe your hair color is different, your skin tone a different shade. Didn’t your family always laugh it off and say it was because your great-great Aunt Hilda had dark hair or some such thing? In The Blueberry Pickers, Norma asks about this a lot, only to have her mother say it’s the sun, or that your thoughts are farcical. And when you grow up in a loving, caring family, you accept these things.
This hard-to-put-down book of loss and of love is written around the seasonal berry pickers in Maine. It never occurred to me that people came from Nova Scotia or Canada to pick berries. I only pictured workers from Mexico coming to earn summer work. Even though this is fictional, it is true about the varied cultures coming to the same places to pick berries each summer.
Amanda Peters writes in a sort of lyrical way. I’m using this term to explain how easy this book is to read.
I’m not fond of chapters being composed from a different POV. Sometimes this can make the story somewhat disjunct, hard to keep track. Peters has written chapters from the point of view of various characters. But somehow, I was never lost, never had to look back. I think that the reason for cohesiveness is her ability to not just describe her characters well, but to make you see them. Each one had his or her own story, but somehow, they all intertwined to make a special story with a special outcome.
This is not a beach read. It is something that could and has happened to many. Racial injustice might be somewhat fairer but still exists today. But the poetical way in which it is told, the emotions it will evoke in you, make it well worth the time to read it.