Heart Berries

Heart Berries is a memoir written in connected, lyrical vignettes by Terese Marie Mailhot. It was published in 2018. The book tells the story of Mailhot’s life as a First Nations woman who moves from Canada to the American Southwest, struggles with bipolar disorder, and comes to terms with her past traumas and tumultuous, sometimes violent marriage.

Plot Summary

The beginning of the book chronicles Mailhot’s love affair with a White man named Casey, who leaves her after she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital and is diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder. Mailhot records her time in the hospital from the perspective of an Indian woman, whose experience isn’t represented by the rational Western medical system. Despite the pain of her hospitalization and abandonment, Mailhot decides to continue her love affair with Casey—at first as a casual lover, and then monogamously.

Mailhot and Casey conceive a child in a pecan field during a particularly difficult period in their relationship. During the pregnancy, Mailhot begins an MFA and must go off her bipolar medication, which results in incredible emotional pain. She and her son Isaiah move in with Casey, and Mailhot gives birth to another son, whom she calls a Thunder Being.

Throughout these essays, Mailhot recalls her life growing up on the reservation. She focuses one essay on her mother, an activist who sometimes forgot to feed them, and one on her father, an alcoholic artist who sexually abused her as a baby. She also writes about her first marriage to a man named Vito, who took custody of their first child, Isadore.

Mailhot reflects on motherhood as both a mother and a child, and the shame and pride she carries as an Indian woman. She also imparts a meta-narrative on the power and limitations of storytelling in Native culture. She openly discusses her bipolar disorder and its effect on her marriage and children. At the end of the memoir, Mailhot graduates with her MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and reflects on the value of education—not just traditional education, but also the learning that comes from experiencing enormous pain.

The memoir ends with a letter from Mailhot to her deceased mother, which speaks frankly about her successes and failures. She compares her mother to Eve and then comes to terms with her death by “leaving her body in the dirt” (121).