THE WALRUS READS

Canadian authors pick the year’s best books

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

Heart Berries is a memoir about an Indigenous single mother who loses custody of her first child as she is giving birth to a new one. Terese Marie Mailhot packs up her bags and baby and decides to become a writer. She explores her own imperfections and desires and abuse in a writing style that is distinct and personal. She turns her life into a fragile and omnipotent myth. I adore the vicious way she approaches her own lust. I also love how she puts herself first and how raw and new that seems in a female narrator, especially a mother. I swallowed this book whole. HEART O'NEILL is the author of three novels. Her latest is The Lonely Hearts Hotel.