A Grandmother Begins the Story (2023) by Michelle Porter is an inventive, beautifully-written book that tells the story of five generations of Métis women and the bison and the land they live on. The audiobook is read by a full cast of 16 different actors, who read the chapters written from the perspectives of the five generations of women, their dogs and vehicle, different bison, and the land. It’s fabulous listening!
Carter is young, only 23, with a 4 year old son, and a husband she is trying to leave. She was given up for adoption by Allie, but later reunited. She didn’t know she was Métis until she was a teenager., but now her grandmother has contacted her. Gramma Lucie apparently has cancer and wants Carter’s help to get pills for her so she can kill herself. Lucie’s mother Genevieve is eighty-something, an alcoholic, and decides to check herself into a rehab center so she can finally have peace. Looking over them all from the afterlife is Genevieve’s mother Mamé–she is still in a liminal space and can’t quite move on yet while there is so much going on.
It’s beautifully written–I had to get the paper book afterwards to write this review–and stands up to either listening or reading. Some of the chapters are written as texts or as very short chapters told from a particular perspective. It’s also really funny, darkly comic and full of truth, and pain, and beauty. I loved the bison’s stories, and especially loved the chapters written from the perspective of Genevieve’s little dogs Perkins and Lottery, especially at the end when they could smell that Carter’s son Tucker was an old soul, and that he was going to need them.
I highly recommend it; I think it’s mostly weight-neutral.
Reading While Fat 