Northern Wildflower
La description
This is the story of how a young northern girl picked herself up out of the rough and polished herself off like the diamond that she is in the land of the midnight sun.
Northern Wildflower is the beautifully written and powerful memoir of Catherine Lafferty. With startling honesty and a distinct voice, Lafferty tells her story of being a Dene woman growing up in Canada’s North and her struggles with intergenerational trauma, discrimination, poverty, addiction, love, and loss. Focusing on the importance of family ties, education, spiritualism, cultural identity, health, happiness, and the courage to speak the truth, Lafferty’s words bring cultural awareness and relativity to Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike, giving insight into the real issues many Indigenous women face and dispelling misconceptions about what life in the North is like.
Reviews
“Lafferty has pulled this off with disarming honesty and grace.”
- Quill and Quire, January 2018
Catherine Lafferty’s life story as a daughter and mother wanting more for her family and for herself is so completely inspiring. Northern Wildflower is a celebration of soul, grace and dignity. I am floored with the talent, courage and heart inside this wonderful debut.
- Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed
“Reading Catherine Lafferty’s memoir Northern Wildflower, I kept wondering if my responses to it made me a morally reprehensible human being, a Donald Trump of the reviewing world. How can a story of growing up as a First Nations Dene woman in the Northwest Territories and Alberta against a backdrop of addiction, violence, poverty, prostitution rings, and teen pregnancy be so charming, joyous, and life-affirming? Do I find the way it explores or resists trauma relatable?”
– Kamal Al-Solaylee, Quill and Quire