Guileless and refreshingly honest, Terese Mailhot's debut memoir chronicles her struggle to balance the beauty of her Native heritage with the often desperate and chaotic reality of life on the reservation

Table of Contents 1 INDIAN CONDITION 2 HEART BERRIES 3 INDIAN SICK 4 IN A PECAN FIELD 5 YOUR BLACK EYE AND MY BIRTH 6 I KNOW I'LL GO 7 LITTLE MOUNTAIN WOMAN 8 THE LEAVING DEFICIT 9 THUNDER BEING HONEY BEAR 10 INDIAN CONDITION 11 BETTER PARTS

Praise for Heart Berries A New York Times Editor's Choice A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection 1 of 27 Most Anticipated Books of 2018 (Esquire) 1 of 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2018 (Entertainment Weekly) 1 of 20 New Books to Read in February (Entertainment Weekly) 1 of 19 of the Best Books to Read This Winter (ELLE) 1 of 10 Books to Read in February (BBC) 1 of 33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018 (Cosmopolitan) 1 of 60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 (Huffington Post) 1 of 50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 (NYLON) 1 of 33 Most Exciting New Books of 2018 (Buzzfeed) One of the Most-Anticipated Adult Books of 2018 (New York Public Library) 1 of 23 Highly Anticipated Books of 2018 (Goodreads) 1 of 30 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 (Bitch) 1 of 7 New Books You Need to Read This February (Vulture) 1 of 14 Debut Books by Women Coming Out in 2018 That You Need in Your TBR Pile (Bustle) 1 of 16 Nonfiction Books Coming in February 2018 to Educate and Inspire You (Bustle) 1 of 21 Books to Read in 2018 (The Week) 1 of 12 New Books You Need to Read This February (Harper's Bazaar) One of The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of 2018 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 (The Coil) What to Read when 2018 Is Just Around the Corner (The Rumpus) 1 of 65 Queer and Feminist Books to Read in 2018 (Autostraddle) A Loan Stars Librarian Pick for the Month of March (Quill & Quire) 1 of the Most Anticipated New Releases of 2018 (Reading Women) The Rumpus Book Club Selection for January "A sledgehammer . . . Her experiments with structure and language . . . are in the service of trying to find new ways to think about the past, trauma, repetition, and reconciliation, which might be a way of saying a new model for the memoir . . . If Heart Berries is any indication, the work to come will not just surface suppressed stories; it might give birth to new forms." --The New York Times "Sometimes a writer's voice is so distinctive, so angry and messy yet wise, that her story takes on the kind of urgency that makes you turn pages faster and faster. Terese Marie Mailhot has one of those voices, and her memoir about being raised on a Canadian reservation and coming to understand what it means to be an indigenous person in modern times is breathtaking." --Esquire, 1 of 27 Most Anticipated Books of 2018 "A luminous, poetic memoir." --Entertainment Weekly, 1 of 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2018 "This powerful memoir reveals a life of struggle and illness, deprivation and pain, but is so full of strength in the face of adversity, that it is impossible not to read it and feel real hope and the possibility of triumph and renewal, no matter how dark things seem . . . The result is this singularly moving, poetic book, one full of rage and desire, fear and brilliance. Prepare for it to sink its teeth into your very heart." --NYLON, 1 of 50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 "This gut punch of a memoir . . . [is] essentially a love letter, full of humor and truth, to tough, challenging women everywhere." --Marie Claire "Poetic is an oft-used descriptor of lovely writing, and this book seems to be something more striking than the word signifies: a memoir and a poem, a haunting and dazzlingly written narrative of Mailhot's growing up on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest." --Huffington Post, 1 of 60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 "Powerful and raw, Heart Berries looks unflinchingly at trauma, love, pain, self-acceptance, and what it means to be a Native woman today." --BuzzFeed, 1 of 33 Most Exciting New Books of 2018 "Mailhot's memoir is one to sit with and absorb slowly, chapter by chapter . . . It's a beautiful read with a deep emotional breadth." --Shondaland "Heart Berries by Terese Mailhot is an astounding memoir in essays. Here is a wound. Here is need, naked and unapologetic. Here is a mountain woman, towering in words great and small... What Mailhot has accomplished in this exquisite book is brilliance both raw and refined." --Roxane Gay, author of Hunger "Inside Terese Mailhot's phenomenal memoir Heart Berries the truth wrestles a knot between hustle and heart. How does a woman raised on a reservation in Canada forge a lifestory in the face of a culture hell bent on keeping her quiet and calm? By and through her body, is how, and this woman's body rages, desires, screams and whispers its way into the reader's body, as if to remind us that the rest of the story will not be silenced. Terese radically reinvents language in order to surface what has been murdered by American culture: the body of a woman, the voice of a warrior, the stories of ancestral spirit jutting up and through the present tense. I am mesmerized by her lyricism because it is shot through with funny angry beautiful brutal truths. This is a writer for our times who simultaneously blows up time. Thank oceans." --Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, Dora: A Headcase, and The Chronology of Water "Heart Berries is an epic take--an Iliad for the indigenous. It is the story of one First Nation woman and her geographic, emotional, and theological search for meaning in a colonial world. It is disturbing and hilarious. It contains sentences of such poetry and power that you will be compelled to set the book down and walk away to recover from the tremors. Terese is a world-changing talent and I recommend this book with 100% of my soul." --Sherman Alexie, author of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me "Mailhot's first book defies containment and categorization. In titled essays, it is a poetic memoir told in otherworldly sentences . . . Not shy, nor raw, nor typical in any way, this is a powerfully crafted and vulnerable account of living and writing about it." --Booklist "Mailhot fearlessly addresses intimately personal issues with a scorching honesty derived from psychological pain and true epiphany . . . Slim, elegiac, and delivered with an economy of meticulous prose, the book calibrates the author's history as an abused child and an adult constantly at war with the demons of mental illness. An elegant, deeply expressive meditation infused with humanity and grace." --Kirkus Reviews "Sharp and scorching . . . It's exciting to think that a person might be able to write their way out of seemingly insurmountable personal, cultural and historical trauma. It's even more exciting to actually watch someone appear, at least partly, to do so . . . This unconventional epic should be part of the canon." --Chicago Tribune "[A]n innovative coming-of-age narrative about Mailhot's upbringing on the Sea Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest . . . explores being Indigenous in a world that has neglected the community for centuries." --Bitch, 1 of 30 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 "With concise, lyrical prose, Mailhot illuminates her history--an abusive parent, a teen marriage, and a child removed from her care by the courts--in a way that feels as much like an elegy as a collection of memories." --Harper's Bazaar, 1 of 12 New Books You Need to Read This February "This is one of the most highly anticipated books of the year, let alone February! . . . The memoir is one of struggle, as she details her dysfunctional upbringing and challenges indigenous women face, but ultimately one of strength and will." --Book Riot, Must-Read February New Releases "Mailhot's memoir isn't just another confession of the hells of living with PTSD and BiPolar disorder: it's a woman writing herself out of the darkness and into acceptance of the events in her life." --The Coil, Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 "A memoir in essays, Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries tells the story of the author's coming-of-age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest--one filled with dysfunction and a dual diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar disorder. What did Mailhot do with all that? She wrote her way out of her trauma, finding forgiveness, understanding, peace, and triumph along the way." --Bustle, 1 of 14 Debut Books by Women Coming Out in 2018 That You Need in Your TBR Pile "There is plenty of misery in Mailhot's memoir, but also something fresh: a sort of lived-in, jargon-free intersectionality . . . The incidents she recounts are horrific on their face, but rendered with a sense of proportion and self-knowledge that rarely emerges from happier lives." --Vulture, 1 of 7 New Books You Need to Read This February "Her poetic memoir is painfully straight to the point--in the best way possible. It's a pleasure to read along as she takes control of her life and finds her voice." --HelloGiggles "This stunning, poetic memoir from Terese Marie Mailhot burns like hot coal. I read it in a single feverish session, completely absorbed and transported by Mailhot's powerful and original voice . . . The strength of her writing comes from Mailhot's fearless embrace of emotional darkness and in her depiction of the psychic cost of living in a white man's world." --BookPage, Nonfiction Top Pick for February "Mailhot works language like a poet and lets memory and time twist around to elicit from herself deeper truths about childhood trauma, mental illness, Native identity, love, romance, and motherhood." --Pasatiempo In the poetic essays that compose this memoir, Terese Marie Mailhot examines coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest; post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; memorializing her mother; reconciling with her father; and more. --Autostraddle "Heart Berries by Terese Mailhot: Stories that untell the dominant culture's cover story from the point of view of a First Nation Woman. Absolutely astonishing in its wrestling of hustle and heart." --Lidia Yuknavitch, "A Year in Reading," The Millions "Heart Berries shook me to my core. It wasn't just the emotionally jarring, painful experiences shared by author Terese Marie Mailhot . . . but also by her unembellished, electric prose." --Inlander "In this poetic memoir of remarkable lyric power, debut author Terese Marie Mailhot blends a deeply personal narrative with fierce (and often funny) political consciousness in sentences so lean that reading them smarts . . . The immense hurt in this book cannot dim the steady beam of Mailhot's brilliance. Heart Berries is a triumph to relish." --The Riveter "This book is ache and balm. It is electric honesty and rigorous craft. It concerns a woman who veers into difficult and haunted corners. She meets ghosts and hospitals. She ends up in a mutinous wing of memoir, disobeying all colonial postures, 'neat narratives, ' formulas and governments. The resulting story is brave and bewitching. I am so grateful to Terese Marie Mailhot, a fiery new voice, whose words devoured my heart." --Kyo Maclear, bestselling author of Birds Art Life "There is some word we have not invented yet that means honesty to the hundredth power, that means courage, exponentially extended, that means I will flay myself for my art, for my survival, for my family, to keep breathing, to keep writing, to keep being alive. Inside that opening is beauty beyond all measure, the truth that art was invented to carry, and power enough to light the word. This book is that kind of opening." --Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted "Heart Berries makes me think of a quote I have always loved: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' (Keats). With a keen eye for intense truth and thoroughly crafted beauty, Mailhot's debut sings like poetry, and stays with you long after you've finished the last page." --Katherena Vermette, award-winning author of The Break "Heart Berries is phenomenal. I finished the book and went right back to the beginning to read through once again; my understanding deepened, as did the mystery. Mailhot's voice is so clear, so disruptive, so assured, and always so mesmerizingly poetic--it somehow startles and lulls all at once. I was KNOCKED DOWN." --Justin Torres, author of We the Animals "Unearthing medicine and receiving power requires you to give your life, and in her debut memoir, Mailhot fearlessly delivers. By turns tender, sad, angry, and funny, Heart Berries is a thought-provoking, powerful exploration of what it means to be a contemporary Indigenous woman and mother." --Eden Robinson, author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize short-listed novel Son of a Trickster "In this debut memoir, Terese Marie Mailhot sends across generations a love letter to women considered difficult. She sends a manifesto toward remembering--culture and heartbreak and laughter. She writes to the men who love these women. She writes prose tight as a perfect sheet, tucked . . . To read this book is to engage with one of our very best minds at work." --Toni Jensen, author of From the Hilltop

Marketing $15,000 marketing and publicity budget ARCs available 5 months in advance Independent bookstore co-op: 5/$25 Goodreads and Shelf Awareness giveaways and paid social media promotions Publicity Events throughout the Pacific Northwest, Seabird Island (BC), El Paso (TX), Las Cruces/Albuquerque (NM), West Lafayette (IN), in (joint reading with Sherman Alexie as well) Possible appearances at Los Angeles Times Book Festival, Word on the Street, Potential lectures at Institute of American Indian Arts, Texas Tech Lubbock, University of Montana, Missoula Coverage in women's magazines (O, Elle, Marie Claire) literary publications (Harper's, The Atlantic, The New Yorker), feminist publications (Bust, Ms.), Native American Publications (Native American Times, Native Peoples Magazine) Seeking feature coverage/profiles in New York Times Magazine (ex. feature profile on Patricia Lockwood), New York Magazine, Pacific Northwest Magazine, Jezebel Original essay placement about the treatment of Native American women in Lenny Letter, New York Times/ original essay placement about mother's relationship with convicted murderer being the basis for Paul Simon's play Capeman National broadcast radio and podcast coverage (Fresh Air, Weekend Edition, Morning Edition, The Takeaway, To the Best of Our Knowledge, Seeking national broadcast coverage; Leonard Lopate, Think Out Loud Widespread outreach to librarians and book clubs Author is on Twitter at @TereseMarieM