Heart Berries

Rainy Fields narrates this deeply original memoir in solemn tones that suit the work. Mailhot traces her personal journey coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia and her development as a writer. Presenting herself at times as "ruined"--and "ruining"--she radiates a vulnerability that Fields's deft narration captures. Mailhot's questions and answers at the audiobook's end are especially enlightening; listeners may want to listen once through, then loop back a second time to fully absorb her intimate honesty, and to fully engage with the sometimes nonlinear and frequently lyrical nature of the writing. Mailhot wrote some passages initially as fiction, but says they're now "bound together and retold as truth." Fields steadily, surely makes that truth available to listeners. J.C.G. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine