{"product_id":"black-water-family-legacy-and-blood-memory-isbn-9781443457767","title":"Black Water: Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory","description":"\u003cp\u003eA \u003cem\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/em\u003e Top 100 Book of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cem\u003eQuill \u0026amp; Quire\u003c\/em\u003e Book of the Year\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA CBC Books Nonfiction Book of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cem\u003eMaclean’s\u003c\/em\u003e 20 Books You Need to Read this Winter\u003cp\u003e“An instant classic that demands to be read with your heart open\u003cbr\u003eand with a perspective widened to allow in a whole new understanding of family,\u003cbr\u003eidentity and love.” —Cherie Dimaline\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn this bestselling memoir, a son who grew up away\u003cbr\u003efrom his Indigenous culture takes his Cree father on a trip to the family\u003cbr\u003etrapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but\u003cbr\u003ecreates a new future\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe son of a Cree father and a white mother, David A.\u003cbr\u003eRobertson grew up with virtually no awareness of his Indigenous roots. His\u003cbr\u003efather, Dulas—or Don, as he became known—lived on the trapline in the bush in\u003cbr\u003eManitoba, only to be transplanted permanently to a house on the reserve, where\u003cbr\u003ehe couldn’t speak his language, Swampy Cree, in school with his friends unless\u003cbr\u003ein secret. David’s mother, Beverly, grew up in a small Manitoba town that had no\u003cbr\u003eIndigenous people until Don arrived as the new United Church minister. They\u003cbr\u003emarried and had three sons, whom they raised unconnected to their Indigenous history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDavid grew up without his father’s teachings or any knowledge\u003cbr\u003eof his early experiences. All he had was “blood memory”: the pieces of his\u003cbr\u003eidentity ingrained in the fabric of his DNA, pieces that he has spent a lifetime\u003cbr\u003eputting together. It has been the journey\u003cbr\u003eof a young man becoming closer to who he is, who his father is and who they are\u003cbr\u003etogether, culminating in a trip back to the trapline to reclaim their\u003cbr\u003econnection to the land. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlack Water \u003c\/em\u003eis a memoir about intergenerational trauma and\u003cbr\u003ehealing, about connection and about how Don’s life informed David’s own. Facing\u003cbr\u003eup to a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey\u003cbr\u003etogether back to the trapline at Black Water and through the past to create a\u003cbr\u003enew future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\"An honest and moving memoir that builds an emotional crescendo . . . .A richly revealing account that is revealing yet respectful.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGalleries West\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“When someone lives their life in a good way, the Haisla call them handsome people. David A. Robertson’s biography is the perfect example of someone who takes care with his words and speaks respectfully; he tackles identity and racism, family bonds and breaks, with nuance and honesty. The power of this approach makes \u003cem\u003eBlack Water\u003c\/em\u003e an essential and timely book.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEden Robinson, bestselling author of The Trickster Trilogy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eBlack Water\u003c\/em\u003e is a deeply moving book about “[t]he experiences of one generation felt by the next, and the next after that… engrained in us through the stories we pass down as gifts.” David A. Robertson writes of kinship and his father with enormous care, heart, and courage.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDavid Chariandy, acclaimed author of Brother and I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A story is a gift, and with \u003cem\u003eBlack Water\u003c\/em\u003e, David A. Robertson is at his most generous. He shares, with candour and tenderness, a personal story of father-son love, deftly weaving it into a larger social and political history of loss, trauma, survival and resurgence. At once intimate and expansive, this is a story of healing and home.”   - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRachel Giese, author of Boys: What it Means to Become a Man\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“David A Robertson's memoir is rich in lore and insight and compassion. He explores Cree values and ideas and their richness and relevance in contemporary life. He does so by taking us through the story of one Indigenous family's journey through the twentieth century in Canada. We are faced with horrors and great loss, but also extraordinary warmth and heroics and a family who refused to ever be defined by anyone but themselves. A wondrous history lesson about love.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHeather O’Neill, award-winning author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is the book I never knew I was waiting for but my whole body recognized when I read it. \u003cem\u003eBlack Water \u003c\/em\u003eis mesmerizing, difficult, inviting, and tremendously gorgeous. It is a love letter about coming home. We are all better people because of the journey David took with his dad    and I am forever grateful for having been allowed to accompany them. David A. Robertson is a treasure: kind, honest, and a master of storytelling. This is him at his best, and while I’m not sure we deserve him, we sure as hell need him.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCherie Dimaline, bestselling author of The Marrow Thieves and Empire of Wild\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A beautiful story of family and cultural ties remade anew.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChatelaine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJury citation for the High Plains Award (Pam Houston)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889317015781,"sku":"NP9781443457767","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781443457767.jpg?v=1730230993","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/black-water-family-legacy-and-blood-memory-isbn-9781443457767","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}