Now she's out of the institution, awkward and bookish, and learning to integrate with mainstream society where nothing works quite like she thinks it should. Athena researches her past, trying to understand why she was institutionalized in the first place and why the people looking after her made such a huge mistake. At the same time, she tries to find a way to live with the man who was her lover in the institution, uncovering all sorts of surprises along the way.
Ruth DyckFehderau has written two nonfiction books with James Bay Cree storytellers: The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee: Stories of Diabetes and the James Bay Cree (2017) and E Nâtamukh Miyeyimuwin: Residential School Recovery Stories of the James Bay Cree, Vol. 1 (forthcoming 2023). Her work has been translated into five languages and she has won many literary awards. She sometimes teaches Creative Writing and English Lit at the University of Alberta. She lives in Edmonton with her partner. She is hearing-impaired. This is her first novel.
"[P]resents with symptoms of acute excellence ... well composed, making perfect use of voice, found-form composition and sentence-level beauty."
— Emily Woodworth, CAROUSEL Magazine
“This novel is impressive in its undertaking and at times heart breaking and then on the next page, making you laugh out loud.” — Laurie Burns, The Miramichi Reader