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Black Water

Written by: David A. Robertson
Narrated by: David A. Robertson
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Publisher's Summary

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year
A Quill & Quire Book of the Year
A CBC Books Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Maclean’s 20 Books You Need to Read this Winter

“An instant classic that demands to be read with your heart open and with a perspective widened to allow in a whole new understanding of family, identity and love.” (Cherie Dimaline)

In this best-selling memoir, a son who grew up away from his Indigenous culture takes his Cree father on a trip to the family trapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but creates a new future

The son of a Cree father and a white mother, David A. Robertson grew up with virtually no awareness of his Indigenous roots. His father, Dulas - or Don, as he became known - lived on the trapline in the bush in Manitoba, only to be transplanted permanently to a house on the reserve, where he couldn’t speak his language, Swampy Cree, in school with his friends unless in secret. David’s mother, Beverly, grew up in a small Manitoba town that had no Indigenous people until Don arrived as the new United Church minister. They married and had three sons, whom they raised unconnected to their Indigenous history.

David grew up without his father’s teachings or any knowledge of his early experiences. All he had was “blood memory”: the pieces of his identity ingrained in the fabric of his DNA, pieces that he has spent a lifetime putting together. It has been the journey of a young man becoming closer to who he is, who his father is and who they are together, culminating in a trip back to the trapline to reclaim their connection to the land.

Black Water is a memoir about intergenerational trauma and healing, about connection and about how Don’s life informed David’s own. Facing up to a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey together back to the trapline at Black Water and through the past to create a new future.

©2020 David A. Robertson (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about Black Water

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Incredible memoir

This story was just lovely to listen to. Grateful to the author for narrating it so beautifully. Have it in print but wanted to hear it read by him as well.

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Searching for family and identity

Really enjoyed the themes in this book. Thank you for sharing your family's story and your search for identity. I found the book incredibly touching and recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about indigenous stories and the search for home.

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Epic, David!

This is an important story to be told on so many levels. I love that your children & children's children will have words to explain their blood memory. I love the facts that you've researched, about Canadian Indigenous history and intertwined them in such a personal story. Congratulations David.

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great story

love love love the story but the readers voice sounds like there getting over a cold.

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