A Space For Expression and Introspection
A Space To Be Determined.
A Space To Be Determined.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/13/heart-berries-review/ Heart Berries, a memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot, sees her wrangling with her past, her present, and her future, in an intense reflection on or of her life as a First Nations indigenous woman. Being that she is only in her thirties, it’s startling just how intense this memoir can get at times. Whether it be a domestic dispute that turned violent quick, or a gross moment in the shower, even losing a child. In Heart Berries, Mailhot doesn’t spare on the details of these events and she writes with a gritty nature that doesn’t pull any punches. Based on the discussions held in class in relation to the article linked above, I started to wonder about the privilege of an individual who can state that the events of this novel in particular can be read as cliche. It’s sort of baffling in a way because, memoirs are supposed to be spaces where fiction isn’t a thing and the scenarios of the novel actually took place. For Mailhot, this book reads very personal, I can feel the passion of every word here. So, how is it that this novel can be written with cliches? If something traumatic happened to an individual and that same individual uses words to explain their grief and pain then no matter how many times a reader has read that material, it should never be something that is considered redundant, or typical, as in the same experience as another. And an argument could be made that the privilege to call someone else’s trauma cliche is within a readers right to say or do but, I think it’s also worth noting that if that reader truly believes that something is cliche in a memoir like this, maybe that should make them more upset at the reality of these traumas happening with such a frequency.
1 Comment
5/3/2019 11:16:40 am
That is exactly how I felt. It was like the writer just glossed over any mention of "memoir." Like you said, it really speaks to the privilege at play here to be able to call someone's trauma "cliche." I don't like to assume, but based on that and the mentions of the book being an "exciting step forward for representation," I can't help but wonder if it would have been "cliche" had it been written in the perspective of a white woman.
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Trey BrownA creative-writing major at Wright State with a particular interest in motion pictures. Archives
April 2019
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