Amanda Peters on the Importance of Tradition
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked. I'm Zibi Owens. I've interviewed more than 2,000
[0:06]authors on this show and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself. Because when you talk about books, you're really
[0:14]talking about life. So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling, and the not yet discovered. Come find your next great
[0:22]read and the story behind it. Enjoy! Okay, you guys, I am obsessed with Amanda
[0:29]DePeter's new novel, The Berthing Tree, and I made it my book club pick. I am so excited.
[0:35]So for those of you who want to meet Amanda, I will put in the show notes,
[0:41]the date and time of when she is coming to book club so that you all can show
[0:45]up and ask her questions on Zoom. I read this book. I could not put it down.
[0:51]I inhaled it over the course of one day, and just found it to be absolutely
[0:56]beautiful, immersive, trans-portative, if that's a word, and just amazing.
[1:01]Amanda was already on this podcast once. Let me give you a little bio for her.
[1:06]Amanda Peters is a writer of Meek Muck and Settler and Sestry.
[1:11]Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers, which she came on the podcast to discuss, was the winner
[1:15]of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the 2023 Barnes
[1:20]and Noble Discover Prize. It was also a finalist for the Atwood,
[1:24]Gibson Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award.
[1:29]Amanda is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts
[1:34]and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has a certificate in creative writing from the University of Toronto.
[1:39]She lives in rights in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, where she is an associate professor in English and theater
[1:45]at Acadia University. You have to read this book, read it with me, and we can talk to her.
[1:50]Enjoy.
[1:51]Welcome, Amanda. Thanks so much for coming back on Totally Book to talk about your new novel, The Berthing Tree. Congratulations.
[1:58]Thank you. I'm very excited and nervous at the same time.
[2:01]Oh my gosh. No, don't be nervous. I am just so filled with enthusiasm and gratitude
[2:07]for the reading experience that I had reading your book where I literally could not put it down.
[2:12]I just sat there. I was outside on this beautiful day, and I was like,
[2:17]I just have to cancel everything else I'm doing right now and finish this book, and it was so good. I just loved it.
[2:22]Love, loved, loved.
[2:23]Well, thank you. I'm so pleased.
[2:26]Anyway, I'm delighted that it'll be a book club pick, and you can do Q&A with our audience in November.
[2:32]That's so nice of you. So thank you for that.
[2:34]Okay. I'm like going, like, if using too much, if that's even the right word.
[2:39]Tell listeners what the Berthing Tree is about.
[2:43]The Berthing Tree is about a young girl growing up in a family where,
[2:50]but there's a few secrets in the family.
[2:53]And her grandmother is the meet mom midwife and women come to her and they give birth under a big old oak tree.
[3:00]But things happened.
[3:03]And the young girl, whose name is Ali Et, eventually moves away from what, from the traditions that her grandmother has tried to instill into her,
[3:11]but something brings her back. So that's all I'm going to say.
[3:15]Okay. Well, that doesn't leave very much for us to discuss, but no, I'm kidding.
[3:19]So much does happen in the story.
[3:21]And I think part of why I loved it, in addition to just your fabulous writing, really fabulous, really fabulous writing,
[3:28]is the connection to home and family, repairing the wounds of the past, like trying to make your way in the world,
[3:38]the friendships that keep us going and, and how it's all interconnected.
[3:44]And also like this reverence for nature and the land and the human body and what women are capable of.
[3:53]Like all of it combines to make a really compelling page turning story.
[3:59]Oh, thank you so much. I actually had some help on that because I've never given birth or anything before,
[4:04]but my sister has four times.
[4:07]Like, does this sound like this is right?
[4:10]She's like, sounds good to me.
[4:12]I've only had C-section, so I would be no help here.
[4:15]But it's just so rooted in truth is how this book feels.
[4:20]It is so rooted in community and feeling and there's even, you know,
[4:25]okay, so in the book, women traditionally give birth under this tree
[4:29]in the backyard of Kiku. Is that your pronestic Kiku?
[4:32]Kiku.
[4:33]You do. Okay.
[4:34]Kiku. Yeah.
[4:35]You do. Okay.
[4:36]Whatever.
[4:37]And basically not the backyard, but down the path in the woods from the house.
[4:43]And there is a whole subplot where the town does not really look favorably on this
[4:50]and really wants this practice to be outdated and wants to modernize and says,
[4:55]this is actually a risk.
[4:56]I'll leave it at that.
[4:57]But there is this sort of push for the newest thing to replace the old thing
[5:03]that can be deeply disturbing.
[5:05]Talk a little bit about that.
[5:07]And why is the new always better as you say in the book?
[5:11]It's been done this way for like thousands of years.
[5:13]It's like why modern medicine who sets?
[5:17]Yeah, it's very strange because in Miigma culture,
[5:20]we have this concept called two-eyed seeing where you have to include the
[5:25]old with the new in order to get a full comprehension of anything.
[5:28]And that's including science and medical science and stuff like that.
[5:31]So I think we're slowly and I think science and not indigenous
[5:36]society starting to catch up to that about the idea that you can use the old
[5:40]and the new together to make something quite beautiful.
[5:43]So, but back then, because this was like the 50s and 60s, right?
[5:47]That was not the case.
[5:48]So they were really pushing medicalization of birth.
[5:52]And I did a little bit of reading, mostly Google.
[5:55]I'm pushing the medicalization of birth.
[5:58]I also worked for a while back in the day with the midwives here in Nova Scotia
[6:04]on regulating the midwifery practice here in Nova Scotia.
[6:07]And our most amazing group of women and indigenous
[6:10]buildwives as well.
[6:11]And they just taught me so much about the history of it, about their qualifications,
[6:15]and about the beauty of midwifery.
[6:18]So I just felt with that quote from my name in my head for the last 30 years.
[6:24]It just kind of all came together in this story.
[6:27]Wow.
[6:28]But there's also a lot that takes place in Alia's childhood, right?
[6:33]We have two timelines really that we're going back and forth.
[6:36]And in the childhood part of her life, we learn about some really formative
[6:41]relationships.
[6:42]And of course, she's at that very impressionable age where, you know,
[6:47]first crushes and all of that.
[6:49]Oh my gosh.
[6:50]I'm very happy.
[6:51]I'm not in that.
[6:52]But now watching my kids go through it.
[6:53]I'm like, oh my gosh.
[6:54]That was rough.
[6:55]But anyway.
[6:56]So she's going through that.
[6:57]And it has this relationship with a boy who comes each year,
[7:02]just for a little bit.
[7:03]And this sort of harkens back to the berry pickers, your first bug,
[7:07]which as we talked, I think it had been picked that day
[7:10]for the Barnes and Old Book Club pick, right?
[7:12]Wasn't there something really exciting that was happening?
[7:14]Yeah.
[7:15]So talk about that and how the community would shift as people came in
[7:21]and how she kept this relationship going and what you were trying to show
[7:26]with all of that.
[7:27]Yeah.
[7:28]So it was tradition here and where I live is the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia.
[7:33]And we are famous for two things,
[7:35]well, three things, highest tides in the world, apples and wine.
[7:38]So apple picking has always been part of just the culture here.
[7:41]And back in the day,
[7:42]the MiGMA people who picked blueberries in Maine
[7:45]would then some would stay in Maine and help with the potatoes
[7:48]and onions and stuff,
[7:49]but some would come back up to the, to pick apples.
[7:52]So I just was following the traditions of the MiGMA people and,
[7:56]and following their route at back then.
[7:59]And now I forget your question.
[8:00]And I was just talking about her relationship with, with John.
[8:07]John.
[8:08]So I had his family be very pickers and they come up,
[8:11]they come up to her place and, and camp at her grandmothers every,
[8:15]every fall and then go to the orchards all day.
[8:18]And then the evening they all come back and camp.
[8:20]So this was stuff that happened.
[8:22]And they camped at my grandparents house actually.
[8:25]I was told in the little, little field they had beside their home.
[8:28]So I just was kind of reflecting that, that part of the culture.
[8:32]And he comes back every year.
[8:33]And so their friends from the time they're, their children,
[8:37]before they even know what friends are.
[8:39]And so, and that relationship carries her through her childhood
[8:44]and adolescence and that, that love and that,
[8:47]just the comfort of being with someone you trust completely.
[8:50]Yeah.
[8:51]But you really capture what happens when someone,
[8:53]you've known for a long time,
[8:55]especially when you're growing up and all of a sudden,
[8:58]maybe your feelings are shifting and you're like,
[9:00]but wait, I know this person said, well, and yet wait,
[9:03]how could I be feeling different?
[9:05]And did they sense this?
[9:06]I mean, I don't know, I had this happen.
[9:07]Did you have this happen?
[9:08]I don't know.
[9:09]I feel like you nailed this whole feeling.
[9:11]Oh, good.
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:13]Everybody had a crush when they were like 14 or 18 and sometimes
[9:15]them were longer and unrequited.
[9:18]Yeah.
[9:19]I'm glad I, I made it, made it work.
[9:22]Yeah.
[9:23]Exactly.
[9:24]You also really created the sense of place.
[9:27]So the grandmother's cabin is, you know,
[9:30]she didn't even want to modernize and get running,
[9:33]you know, get a real bathroom and she was just like,
[9:36]you show us in such detail what it looks like.
[9:39]It feels like and, and the thin coat of dust at certain times
[9:43]that comes and the, I mean,
[9:46]talk about painting a picture of this place
[9:49]because creating a strong sense of place and fiction is,
[9:52]is really a gift.
[9:54]Yeah.
[9:55]It's not a house that I know, but the surrounding area is kind of a
[9:58]host that I was inspired by.
[10:00]But the house I just like I could dive deep into my own head and think about all of the the brilliant houses of my childhood and my past with the grandmothers and the great grandmothers and and how how they smelled and how they felt and that sense of comfort, even when there was a thin layer of dust, right, just comfortable there.
[10:18]So I just kind of drew on all my memories of like my great aunts and my my great grandparents and my grandparents and although the house is fictionalized I don't know how it's like that, but I kind of drew on those memories.
[10:28]To build that that house and the place itself is kind of reminiscent of a mixture again of all my different older family members on their homes so yeah, I just kind of dive into my own memories I guess for that.
[10:44]Well, there's a sense of grief and longing also in the book, right, because I don't think it's giving anything away to say that the very beginning right.
[10:52]Well, yeah, it's mother has passed away during it's right and she was young when she gave birth and all that and she never knew her mom really and was just longing for a picture like more just what to root her in the world like not and she didn't know who her father was and she had lost her mother early and she just reflects a little bit on like where did I even come from what does this who does that make me how do I root my identity and something.
[11:21]Tell me a little bit about that and what it feels like to just feel that sort of floating I don't know lack of grounding in a way, I know she has her grandmother, but yeah, so also in the in the book that we talk about how stories are important.
[11:37]And we have to tell our birth stories to our children in order for them to say grounded and say connected to the community and to the family.
[11:45]So if you don't have a full birth story you don't know the full book birth story are you are you not complete right even her story is captured in the rings of the tree.
[11:56]She doesn't know it so it's not told her gee gee joo her grandmother can only teach her so much and tell her so much because her mother's not there to tell her the rest and I think she just kind of feels like because I don't have my own birth story.
[12:08]I'm kind of I don't know where I belong in the world in the universe.
[12:13]So sometimes when people have success with a novel, they can feel like that you know anxiety trying to do it again terror terror it's called terror tell me how you felt tell me.
[12:26]Did you started this book beforehand like give me the timeline of the whole thing.
[12:31]This is actually based on one of the short stories in my short story collection.
[12:34]So I wrote it before the berry pickers and the reason why I wrote is because when my grandmother was living with dementia.
[12:41]I was there for the weekend to stay with her we we talked turns were massive family my dad's 10 or 14 so there's lots of us to be there.
[12:49]So it was my weekend and she was just looking at the window at her birth feeders turned around looked at me and said you know that old tree down by the water.
[12:55]And I said I did because I don't I don't know if I do or not.
[13:00]And she said that's where we used to get birth.
[13:03]And that's all I ever got from her.
[13:05]It's all I ever got from her so I've asked family members multiple times people like yeah we kind of heard a little bit about that before but nobody could identify the tree and it's just stuck in my head for such a long time.
[13:15]So that's why I wrote the book like just because I had that that that quote from my my name in my head and she passed away in 2003 so she should only go with us.
[13:24]But but I've had it there for so long and I was like I need to do something with this.
[13:28]So that's how the book came about did I answer your question I started rambling and did not know that's okay.
[13:33]I was just wondering the timeline so it came from a short story.
[13:36]Yeah so it came from the short story that I wrote back in like 2015 2016 and of course went through edits and stuff like that and then I don't know sometimes it just sits up in your head right.
[13:49]It just sits in your head for a long time before it actually comes together and solidifies so I had that short story I'm like but I feel like there's more to it.
[13:59]But I don't know and then I'd have like a little thing in my very like a scene and like but how does that fit in like I don't know how it happens it.
[14:06]So then I just started writing I got a residency at the BAM Center for Arts and Creativity in BAM Alberta.
[14:12]And for 12 days I just wrote straight and wrote 60,000 words and just got what I had in my head.
[14:18]And then I had to organize it and then thank God for my editor coming in to help me me get one of this today so.
[14:25]Okay, you wrote 60,000 words of this book and one fell swoop that's incredible how much is still in the book.
[14:32]Some I think it was more like I would say I just sometimes you just have to get into your head.
[14:38]Right and right and right and when you have like 12 days where someone cleans your room for you have your own private office they cook for you you're in this beautiful place with the.
[14:48]All around you, it just made it quite easy to just sit and do nothing but now it was not good.
[14:54]Right, it was just getting those ideas out onto the page that I could work with them and mold them over the next two years basically into something that are three years into something that resembled a good story.
[15:06]But it was just it was like cathartic just getting it all out from the brain and onto the page, even when it was some of it was like oh my heavens Amanda I can't believe you wrote that and then I had a delete whole scenes and change things around and yeah.
[15:19]Wow, and are you have you had something similar happened since.
[15:23]Yes.
[15:25]That's all you're going to say.
[15:27]That's all I'm going to say.
[15:29]That was the year of the creative God stealing my thoughts if I say them allowed.
[15:33]We got it a lot of superstition well that's exciting and I won't pry it all but that's great.
[15:38]It's also good to know that like the well didn't run dry.
[15:42]Not yet.
[15:43]No.
[15:44]Okay, I won't drink.
[15:45]Maybe that was.
[15:46]This one requires more research so it's taking me a little bit more time like it's it's not like based on places I know or or family relationships and stuff.
[15:55]So it's taking me a little bit more time to do a lot of reading and a lot of just research to give me a background.
[16:01]So not things are necessarily going to make it into the book but just give me the confidence to write intelligently about what I want to write about.
[16:08]So if you if you could like magically get into everyone's heads and say this is what I want everybody to take away from this book.
[16:16]Right. I want everybody to put this book down and go away thinking XYZ what would it be.
[16:22]The traditions are important even sometimes we think they aren't.
[16:26]They carry traditions carry your whole history and your culture from time immemorial.
[16:32]So tradition is important sometimes tradition is not great but generally I think tradition in this way is important and just feeling comfortable with yourself.
[16:42]Right.
[16:43]She spent a long time just trying to understand who she was and my other very said you're always going to write about identity aren't you.
[16:49]Probably as a mixed race woman who struggled with her identity her whole life not exactly knowing where she belongs and then finding it through writing and and Elliot and then I'll will finds it through returning to a grandmother's tradition.
[17:02]So I think just finding out who you are and holding under those traditions are quite important.
[17:07]Also, I always say at the end of the day I just want people or readers to close a book and say that was a good story.
[17:13]So it was a good story as you know.
[17:18]What is one tradition in your life now that you're like I'm not giving this up this is something that is a part of every week in my life.
[17:26]Oh jeez I don't even know that's that's hard.
[17:29]The thing that came to the top of my mind I don't know why this is it but every Christmas Eve since he was born my nephew and I do a Christmas Eve photo.
[17:37]Yeah and it's just the two of us I have three nieces his older sisters but him and I we just every Christmas Eve and he's his 12 I'm like you're going to get tired of this someday I'm going to get too cool and you're not going to do this because I promise not to we will always do our Christmas Eve photo.
[17:51]So now I have them on my phone in order for the last two years.
[17:55]I can look through and look at how cute we are but my family is really big on spending time together especially during the holiday so it's just really nice to be together.
[18:05]That's lovely I have an nephew who I adore who I can't believe it's like so tall now it's like crazy like where's the time going you know.
[18:13]He's going to be 12 tomorrow tomorrow.
[18:16]So today the 23rd.
[18:19]Oh but I'm like oh I hope he doesn't get too cool for auntie.
[18:25]What do you like to read?
[18:27]A little bit of everything right now because it's summer because I teach during the fall of winter I'm just just reading like voraciously so right now I'm reading John John by Douglas Stewart.
[18:39]Wow I just finished intramiso by Sally Rooney.
[18:43]I'm reading some Jordan Abel I he's an indigenous writer here from from Canada.
[18:48]I'm listening to yesteryear and I'm also reading braided sweet grass by Robin Kilmer so I got a few things going on.
[18:55]I usually have one on paper on kobo my e-reader and one I'm listening to.
[19:03]I'm the same way there's something in my car there's a thing that we're everywhere.
[19:08]There has to be like being without a book.
[19:11]I'm like what do I do in this line if I don't have a book.
[19:14]I agree 100% I took myself up to lunch today and I had to make sure I had my book with me so I even sit there and read my book while I ate.
[19:21]I was picking up one of my kids the other day and I got their 10 minutes early and I was just sitting there being like but but.
[19:27]Oh no how did I how did it fall out I didn't have a book and I was just at a loss.
[19:33]I'm not great service.
[19:34]I mean obviously I can fill my time with Instagram still it's a panic situation.
[19:39]It is it is.
[19:40]Well Amanda thank you for writing this book.
[19:43]I'm so excited again you're going to be doing book clubs so we'll have time to continue this conversation and open up the the the dialogue with with even more questions but it was just so poignant and beautiful.
[19:55]And thank you for sharing it with the world.
[19:58]Oh thank you for having me all excited.
[20:00]Yay, thank you for loving the book.
[20:02]Oh, you're welcome.
[20:03]I mean, it's like you never know, right?
[20:05]You just don't know.
[20:05]You just, it's the greatest feeling
[20:08]when you just get so pulled in to a story.
[20:12]And there's, you know, you can,
[20:13]you can look at 12 on the shelf
[20:15]and they all sound great.
[20:16]And they all look great.
[20:17]And then one just like gets right into your heart.
[20:20]I don't know.
[20:21]That's why we read, right?
[20:21]Yes, of course, I agreed 100%, amazing.
[20:25]All right.
[20:26]Well, thank you so much.
[20:27]Thanks for coming in.
[20:28]Bye.
[20:29]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[20:32]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[20:35]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[20:38]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[20:41]and spread the word.
[20:42]Thanks so much.
[20:43]Oh, and bye the books.