Black Water - Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year

A Quill & Quire Book of the Year

A CBC Books Nonfiction Book of the Year

A Maclean’s 20 Books You Need to Read this Winter
“An instant classic that demands to be read with your heart open
and with a perspective widened to allow in a whole new understanding of family,
identity and love.” —Cherie Dimaline
In this bestselling memoir, a son who grew up away
from his Indigenous culture takes his Cree father on a trip to the family
trapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but
creates a new future
The son of a Cree father and a white mother, David A.
Robertson grew up with virtually no awareness of his Indigenous roots. His
father, Dulas—or Don, as he became known—lived on the trapline in the bush in
Manitoba, only to be transplanted permanently to a house on the reserve, where
he couldn’t speak his language, Swampy Cree, in school with his friends unless
in secret. David’s mother, Beverly, grew up in a small Manitoba town that had no
Indigenous people until Don arrived as the new United Church minister. They
married and had three sons, whom they raised unconnected to their Indigenous history.
David grew up without his father’s teachings or any knowledge
of his early experiences. All he had was “blood memory”: the pieces of his
identity ingrained in the fabric of his DNA, pieces that he has spent a lifetime
putting together. It has been the journey
of a young man becoming closer to who he is, who his father is and who they are
together, culminating in a trip back to the trapline to reclaim their
connection to the land.
Black Water is a memoir about intergenerational trauma and
healing, about connection and about how Don’s life informed David’s own. Facing
up to a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey
together back to the trapline at Black Water and through the past to create a
new future.

 

About the author

DAVID A. ROBERTSON is an author, editor, and speaker on Indigenous issues, mental health and freedom of expression. His books include the novel The Theory of Crows, the memoir Black Water, the picture books When We Were Alone and On the Trapline, and the middle-grade series the Misewa Saga. He has won awards such as the TD Canadian Children’s Literary Award, the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award and has been shortlisted for many others. He was the writer and host of the podcast Kiwew, which won the 2021 RTDNA Prairie Region Award for Best Podcast. In 2023, the University of Manitoba honoured him with a doctor of letters for his contributions to the arts. David A. Robertson is a member of Norway House Cree Nation. He lives in Winnipeg.
 

Summary

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year

A Quill & Quire Book of the Year

A CBC Books Nonfiction Book of the Year

A Maclean’s 20 Books You Need to Read this Winter
“An instant classic that demands to be read with your heart open
and with a perspective widened to allow in a whole new understanding of family,
identity and love.” —Cherie Dimaline
In this bestselling memoir, a son who grew up away
from his Indigenous culture takes his Cree father on a trip to the family
trapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but
creates a new future
The son of a Cree father and a white mother, David A.
Robertson grew up with virtually no awareness of his Indigenous roots. His
father, Dulas—or Don, as he became known—lived on the trapline in the bush in
Manitoba, only to be transplanted permanently to a house on the reserve, where
he couldn’t speak his language, Swampy Cree, in school with his friends unless
in secret. David’s mother, Beverly, grew up in a small Manitoba town that had no
Indigenous people until Don arrived as the new United Church minister. They
married and had three sons, whom they raised unconnected to their Indigenous history.
David grew up without his father’s teachings or any knowledge
of his early experiences. All he had was “blood memory”: the pieces of his
identity ingrained in the fabric of his DNA, pieces that he has spent a lifetime
putting together. It has been the journey
of a young man becoming closer to who he is, who his father is and who they are
together, culminating in a trip back to the trapline to reclaim their
connection to the land.
Black Water is a memoir about intergenerational trauma and
healing, about connection and about how Don’s life informed David’s own. Facing
up to a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey
together back to the trapline at Black Water and through the past to create a
new future.

 

Additional text

"I found this book really brave, beautiful and nuanced in its exploration of indigenous identity, generational trauma and blood memory. The narrator has a keen eye that he is not at all afraid to turn on himself, balancing recrimination and self-implication, rage and forgiveness. When David's father says "I didn't want to tell you how to be an indigenous man because you are an indigenous man," we are deeply moved, even as the book has led us to believe that is not quite a good enough answer. That's what I mean by nuanced. There are no easy solutions to the problem of indigenous identity in the face of a racist nation and 500 years of genocide. There are only fathers and sons, finding their way along a trap line."

Product details

• Authors: David A Robertson, David A. Robertson
• Publisher: Harper Perennial USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.09.2021
• EAN: 9781443457781
• ISBN: 978-1-4434-5778-1
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 203 mm x 17 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Biography: general, Memoirs, United States of America, USA, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Personal Memoirs, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: General