The Berry Pickers
Amanda Peters, 2023
Historical fiction Mystery, thriller & crimeContemporary fiction
A Mi’kmaq family’s summer in a Maine blueberry field ends in a child’s disappearance; decades later, a woman begins to question the silence she was raised in. Quiet and lyrical, moving between voices and decades, with grief and memory pressing on every scene.
Feels like grief, longing and serenity. About family, identity and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you’re drawn to family stories told in restrained, lyrical prose and to mysteries that centre memory and identity. Be aware that the child’s disappearance and the long shadow of grief make it a heavy read, and the pacing is reflective rather than brisk.
Why read it
It gives you a close look at loss, silence and belonging, and at the quiet ways families carry what goes unsaid.
A page from the book
For an only child, books are more than paper; they are a way out.
I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid. Amanda Peters.Amanda Peters is a Mi’kmaq writer from Nova Scotia; The Berry Pickers won the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Books that feel like this
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- Is The Berry Pickers for me?
- You may like it if you’re drawn to family stories told in restrained, lyrical prose and to mysteries that centre memory and identity. Be aware that the child’s disappearance and the long shadow of grief make it a heavy read, and the pacing is reflective rather than brisk.
- What is The Berry Pickers like?
- Quiet and lyrical, moving between voices and decades, with grief and memory pressing on every scene. Feels like grief, longing and serenity. About family, identity and memory.
- What should I read after The Berry Pickers?
- If you liked The Berry Pickers, try One Italian Summer (Rebecca Serle), The Things We Cannot Say (Kelly Rimmer) and The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough).
A taste of the feed
What goes missing when a family stops asking questions?
What happens when stories like theirs are lost? What happens when there’s no one left to pass your experience on to, or you just can’t bring yourself to share it?
The Things We Cannot Say · Kelly Rimmer
Do we ever really change, or merely become ourselves?
Each of us has something within us which won’t be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that’s all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can’t affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it’s the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don’t you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.
The Thorn Birds · Colleen McCullough
What a house becomes when no one has been living in it.
“It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf strewn driveway.
The God of Small Things · Arundhati Roy
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed