November 1, 2021
A M�tis woman in her thirties, Ruby was adopted by white parents who imparted nothing of her heritage, and now she wants to know where she came from. With her, readers learn about her birth parents and grandparents, as well as her children and the lovers, both men and women, who have enriched her life if sometimes bringing her heartache. From Cree-M�tis writer Bird-Wilson, who has published poetry and story collections in Canada and debuts in the United States with this first novel.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 15, 2022
A bighearted portrait of an Indigenous woman whose transracial adoption spurs a lifelong quest to discover--or perhaps create--her identity. Born in the 1970s to a White, unmarried teenage mother and a M�tis/Cree father, Ruby is placed in foster care and eventually adopted by a White couple who "couldn't afford to be too choosy" about the baby's Indigenous heritage. Ruby's adoptive father, a seldom-employed alcoholic, leaves the family when Ruby is an adolescent. Ruby remains unhappily with her mother, Alice, who makes her wear a huge hat because her skin "instantly browned up in the sun" and who won't help her daughter research her Indigenous roots. Deprived of both her own history and real affection as she comes of age, Ruby grasps for satisfaction where she can find it, often resorting to alcohol and sex with unworthy partners. The novel is composed of chapters dated by year and titled with the names of people who have shaped Ruby, including her adoptive and biological parents, boyfriends, and social workers. The random ordering of the vignettes--ranging from 1950 to 2018--can be confusing. Some chapters are told from Ruby's perspective and involve figures in her life, while others assume the points of view of family members Ruby never meets. The chapter about Ruby's pregnant birth mother is a heartbreaking account of what happens when women lack reproductive freedom, and the chapter that follows Ruby's grandfather convincingly renders the abuse he suffers as a student at one of Canada's notorious residential schools for Indigenous children. Sometimes the fragmented narrative is unsatisfying: As soon as one character's central trauma is revealed, the novel moves on to another, leaving little opportunity for development. Only Ruby is fully realized by the end. But readers may forgive clunky prose and spans of exposition for the chance to spend time with this complicated character with a big laugh and a guarded but vulnerable heart. An unsparing exploration of the injustices wrought by misogyny and settler colonialism.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
February 28, 2022
The moving if somewhat disjointed latest from Saskatchewan Métis and nêhiyaw poet Bird-Wilson (The Red Files) pieces together scenes from the life of a troubled and spirited woman. The protagonist, daughter of two teenagers, one Métis and one white, is adopted by a white couple and grows up in western Canada with the name Ruby Valentine. She copes with feeling disconnected from her adopted family and from her ancestral origins by drinking excessively and with a series of doomed relationships. The author flips back and forth through Ruby’s unhappy childhood and unfulfilling visits with her birth family, with each chapter dedicated to a different character in her “relationship web.” There’s her birth father, who died in a car wreck when Ruby was a child; her mother, who was forced by the state to surrender her baby; her grandfather, who endured horrors at a residential school for Indigenous children; and several others. Each chapter is vivid and contains a satisfying resolution, though the whole occasionally frustrates, as it seems designed for an overarching narrative but doesn’t quite cohere. Still, the fragmented nature lends a sense of verisimilitude to this painful story of a fractured family history, and readers will be carried along by Ruby’s vitality and perseverance. This is well worth a look.