Themes & Context
This emotion dominates Joe's relationship with Ruthie's disappearance for most of his life.
What is guilt?
This is where Norma meets Mark.
What is "on a train"?
Old Joe is suffering from this serious illness.
What is cancer?
Ruthie was this age when she disappeared.
What is four years old?
This is Joe's daughter.
Who is Leah?
The fact that Ruthie is removed from her family and raised without knowledge of her Indigenous identity echoes the real-world experiences of children affected by this Canadian policy. The term is used to describe the large-scale removal of Indigenous children from their families in Canada, particularly in the 1950s through 1980s.
What is the Sixties Scoop?
This person joins an Indigenous protest movement in Boston and believes he has seen Ruthie.
Who is Ben?
This is the age Joe was when Ruthie disappeared.
What is six years old?
The police officer who responds to Ruthie's disappearance refuses to organize a serious search because the family is viewed as this.
These two siblings had been sent to a residential school before the events of Ruthie's disappearance.
Who are Ben and Mae?
The Indigenous nation associated with where the Berry Pickers family lives OR this is the province the Berry Picker family lives in.
Who are the Mi'kmaq? What is Nova Scotia?
This is the owner of the berry fields.
Who is Mr. Ellis?
This woman becomes Joe's wife, but his drinking destroys their marriage.
Who is Leah?
This is Norma's profession.
What is a teacher?
This person is Aunt June's "roommate."
Who is Alice?
Under this Canadian government policy (and similar ones in the US), Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities and placed in these institutions to assimilate them into White society.
What are the residential schools?
The Indigenous protest in Boston is in this neighborhood.
What is Jamaica Plain?
This is the only familiar face to Joe when he returns to the berry farm to pick as an adult.
Who is Frankie?
Norma's marriage dissolved because of this conversation after Norma suffers a stillbirth.
What is "whether or not to try for children again"?
This brother dies after getting into a "fight" with Archie during the family's final summer in Maine.
Who is Charlie?
One of the tribal nations whose ancestral homelands make up the land upon which MIT is situated today.
What is Massachusett and Wampanoag?
This location allows Norma to recognize her childhood memories as Ruthie before she was taken.
What is the berry farm cabin?
After the violent incident with Cora, Joe steals this from his father before leaving town.
What is his father's truck?
What is a sandwich while sitting on a big rock?
This person is a local judge.
Who is Frank?