“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.
– Maggie Nelson
Generational trauma is the most pervasive type of trauma; it erodes at the soul. An individual suffering from generational trauma their parents passed onto them and the cumulative trauma that you gain while you are living your own life can be crippling. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot demonstrates the effect that generational trauma has on women, and especially women of color. Terese Mailhot’s memoir pays homage to that pain and attempts to sort through the baggage that comes with it. While Terese admits that the memoir is not one hundred percent accurate, it does “meld to imagination, pain.” It’s Mailhot’s attempts to sort through her memories, and reconcile with the pain that her parents have gifted, and inflicted upon her.
Terese Marie Mailhot published Heart Berries in 2018 and was received positively – and for good reason. Heart Berries is a tour de force that deals with Mailhot’s struggles with mental health, personal identity, and interpersonal relationships. A major part of her novel is her experience with her boyfriend, Casey, who does not understand the pain that she is carrying. Parts of the narrative is addressing Casey and demanding that he take responsibility for the toxic parts of their relationship, as she has repeatedly done while ruminating through their relationship. Mailhot is baring the most personal pieces of her relationship to dig through them and understand them. Heart Berries is a brave reconciliation with the past, and a confrontation of Mailhot’s future.
