Nicole Brossard, poet, novelist and essayist, author of Mauve Desert “What makes Bloodroot a precious reading is the path it follows from facts to memory and fragments of oneself, to thoughts creating and assembling enough proofs to ‘untell a (her) mother’ and compose a viable relation to the truth.” Every page is marked by Betsy Warland’s presence and precision.” “ Bloodroot is a deeply moving and evocative memoir, a reminder that death is not a finite moment, but an unsteady process of holding on and letting go. Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Art of Leaving This book is still astonishing, still heart-opening, and more necessary than ever.”

Twenty-one years later, the beauty and lucidity of Warland’s prose, the artistry in her storytelling, and the boldness of her voice continue to resonate. The book’s daring form, ground-breaking at the time, corresponded with the nonlinearity of grief and the fragmented nature of memory and gave a generation of young writers permission to tell their stories in the way they demanded to be told. “The first time I read Bloodroot, I was astounded. The 2021 edition, reprinted by Inanna for the launch of its Inanna Signature Feminist Publications series, includes a new foreword by Susan Olding and a new essay by Warland that explores subsequent questions, insights and tenderness only the passage of time can enable. The 2000 edition of Bloodroot broke new ground in memoir form and uncharted storytelling. Warland weaves a common ground that moves beyond duty and despair, providing both questions and guideposts for readers, particularly those faced with ageing and ill parents and their loss. In her mother’s final year, Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected and fraught. We meet the third Wednesday of each month.In Bloodroot, Betsy Warland traces how a mother and daughter’s shared gender can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself. Woke & Well-Read explores life through African-American eyes, and is open to all.

The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself.īut now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Aria is no stranger to tragedy - as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. Please join the Woke & Well-Read Book Club in our 2nd year at Big Blue Marble! Our March read is the novel The Untelling by Tamari Jones.

The untelling