Publisher Description
Award-winning author Michelle Porter makes her fiction debut with an enchanting and original story of the unrivaled desire for healing and the power of familial bonds across five generations of Métis women and the land and bison that surround them.
Written like a crooked Métis jig, A Grandmother Begins the Story follows five generations of women and bison as they reach for the stories that could remake their worlds and rebuild their futures.
Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means.
Allie, Carter's mother, is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward.
This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters—including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land—heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.
Audiobook is Read by a Full cast:
- Mamé - Tantoo Cardinal (she/her)
- Geneviève - Jani Lauzon (she/her)
- Velma - Tara Sky (she/they)
- Lucie - Monique Mojica (she/her)
- Allie - Lisa Cromarty (she/her)
- Carter - Jenny Pudavick (she/her)
- Bio Sister - Kiawentiio (she/her)
- Solin - Michelle Porter (she/her)
- Dee - Alison Deon (she/her)
- Tell - Jacob MacInnis (they/them)
- Grasslands - Elle-Màijà Tailfeathers (she/her)
- Perkins - Bernard Starlight (he/him)
- Lottery - Dakota Ray Hebert (she/her)
- Bets (the Volvo) - Yolanda Bonnell (they/she)
- Slavko - Wesley French (he/him)
- Pam - Brefny Caribou (she/her)
Download and start listening now!
“Sixteen narrators, many Indigenous, join their voices to deliver memoirist/poet Michelle Porter’s haunting debut novel…Porter’s dreamlike writing is enhanced by a delicate soundtrack interwoven with a playful fiddle and gently thrumming drums. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
—
AudioFile
About Michelle Porter
Michelle Porter is the descendent of a long line of Métis storytellers. Many of her ancestors told stories using music, and today she tells stories using the written word. She is the author of a memoir and a book of poetry, Inquiries, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry in Canada in 2019. Her book of creative nonfiction called Approaching Fire was shortlisted for the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award. She holds degrees in journalism, folklore, English, and geography. Her work has been published in literary journals and magazines across the country. She teaches creative writing and Métis literature at Memorial University. She is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation and she lives in Newfoundland and Labrador.
About the Narrators
Zondervan, part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, is a
world leading Bible publisher and provider of Christian communications. For
more than eighty years, Zondervan has delivered transformational Christian
experiences through its bestselling Bibles, books, curriculum, academic
resources, and digital products. The company’s products are sold in multiple formats,
worldwide in more than sixty countries, and translated into nearly two hundred
languages.
Kiff VandenHeuvel, voice talent and audiobook narrator, is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is an alumni of the Second City comedy theater. He is an accomplished improviser and sketch comedy director, and he teaches voice-over, improv, and directing at Second City Hollywood. He has appeared in hundreds of television and radio commercials and is well known in the video game community as the voice of Zachary Hale Comstock in Bioshock: Infinite.